This chapter outlines different ethical approaches of relevance for a normative assessment of nano-release. We elaborate on traditional risk assessment and the well-known notion of a Precautionary Principle in order to demonstrate that these accounts need to be complemented to provide ethical guidance with regard to environmental influence of emerging technologies. We conclude that it is obligatory to engage in what they call an “eco-centric evaluation” of nano-release.

In this article, the logical implications of a right to life are examined. It is first argued that the prohibition of Termination of life on request confers an inalienable right to life. A right is inalienable if it cannot legitimately be waived or transferred. Since voluntary euthanasia entails waiver of the right to life, the inalienability yields that it cannot be justified. Therefore, any ethical position that is in favor of voluntary euthanasia has to argue that the right to life (...) is an inalienable right and accept the conclusion that killing on request is justified. (shrink)

In 2020, after the first Covid-19 lockdown, several countries implemented a policy of contact tracing and self-isolating for individuals who crossed borders or came into contact with infected people. To enforce these restrictions, some states imposed very harsh monetary penalties for people who violated them. Behind these harsh fines lies an instrumental rationale. They allow the state to avoid implementing a system of labor-intensive and costly surveillance and enforcement. In this article I argue that such severe penalties are extremely unjust. (...) In order not to expose citizens to the risk of being excessively fined, governmental institutions should instead intensify controls. I argue that they owe it to their citizens to increase the surveillance of compliance with self-isolation obligations. (shrink)

Die Generalversammlung der Vereinten Nationen UN hat im September 2015 eine Übereinkunft über die globalen Entwicklungsziele der Periode 2015 bis 2030 getroffen. In der »Agenda 2030« werden insgesamt siebzehn »Sustainable Development Goals« festgehalten. Die Vereinbarung gilt ab 2015 als Ersatz für ihre Vorgängerin, die Agenda 2021 mit ihren »Millennium Development Goals«. Die Intention der Übereinkunft besteht darin, die wirtschaftliche Entwicklung in allen Ländern voranzutreiben und sie gleichzeitig mit sozialen und ökologischen Zielen zu vereinbaren. Die Agenda 2030 beinhaltet somit eine Ausbalancierung (...) wirtschaftlicher, sozialer und ökonomischer Zielsetzungen. (shrink)

Recently, economic studies on labor market developments have indicated that there is a potential threat of technological mass unemployment. Both smart robotics and information technology may perform a broad range of tasks that today are fulfilled by human labor. This development could lead to vast inequalities. Proponents of an unconditional basic income have, therefore, employed this scenario to argue for their cause. In this chapter, the author argues that, although a basic income might be a valid answer to the challenge (...) of technological unemployment, it fails to account for some ethical problems specific to future expectations of mass unemployment. The author introduces the proposal of an unconditional basic capital and shows how it can address these problems adequately and avoid objections against a basic income. However, the basic capital proposal cannot replace all redistributive social policies. It has to be interpreted as a supplement to either a basic income or more traditional redistributive policies. (shrink)

In diesem Artikel werden fünf in der Technikfolgenabschätzung zentrale normative Leitideen erläutert und analysiert, nämlich der Begriff des Gemeinwohles, die Konzepte der Nachhaltig-keit und der Sozialverträglichkeit, die Bedeutung von Grundrechten und zuletzt der Ansatz von Responsible Research and Innovation. Dabei werden einige versteckte Wertannahmen, die sich hinter den Konzepten verbergen, aufgedeckt. Ziel ist es aufzuzeigen, worauf normative Schlussfolgerungen über Technikfolgen theoretisch aufbauen. Zuletzt werden die fünf Konzep-te miteinander in Beziehung gesetzt. Es wird dargelegt, welche Überschneidungen bestehen und welche Widersprüche zwischen (...) den unterschiedlichen normativen Forderungen entstehen, die aus den jeweiligen Leitbildern folgen. (shrink)

The will theory of rights has so far been considered incapable of capturing individual rights under criminal law. Adherents of the will theory, therefore, have defended the claim that criminal law does not assign rights to individuals. In this article I argue first, that criminal law does assign individual rights and second, that the will theory of rights may enhance our understanding of these rights. The two major implications of the account are: a volenti non fit iniuria principle for criminal (...) law, and a theoretical framework for an idea of punishment as restitution. (shrink)

Inevitably, digitization and the increasing use of intelligent programs and machines have fundamentally changed the world of work. Moreover, it is to be expected that trends will continue in the near future and that other far-reaching changes will occur. Work is such an essential part in the lives of most members of society. It is not only the primary source of income but also crucial for one’s self-fulfillment, identification, and the achievement of social recognition. Therefore, from a societal, legal, and (...) political perspective, there is a need to understand the imminent changes, to critically reflect on them, and to draft alternative proposals to shape the future in order to provide normative guidance. (shrink)

Dieser Artikel befasst sich mit dem in der politischen Theorie aber auch in der Rechtsphilosophie zentralen Konzept eines unveräußerlichen Rechtes. Ein Recht ist unveräußerlich, wenn eine Rechtsträgerin oder ein Rechtsträger ihr oder sein eigenes Recht nicht aufgeben kann oder übertragen kann. Eine Unveräußerlichkeit ist eine rechtliche 'Unmöglichkeit', den eigenen rechtlichen Status zu verändern. Die rechtstragende Person kann die Pflichten die ihr gegenüber aufgrund des Rechtes geschuldet sind, nicht auflösen (vgl. Meyers 1985, S. 28) und sie kann den Rechtsadressierten keine Befugnisse (...) erteilen, um ihr Pflichten zur Nicht-Ausübung des Rechtes aufzuerlegen. (shrink)

Unveräußerliche Rechte kann man nicht freiwillig aufgeben oder übertragen. Nicht nur Grundrechte können unveräußerlich sein. Unser Rechtssystem schränkt auf unterschiedliche Weisen die Verfügung über gewisse Rechte ein. Weshalb dürfen aber die Rechtstragenden nicht darüber verfügen? Handelt es sich dabei nicht um eine ungerechtfertigte Einschränkung der Vertragsfreiheit oder der möglichen Einwilligung?

Broadly speaking, this is a book about truth and the criteria thereof. Thus it is, in a sense, a book about justification and rationality. But it does not purport to be about the notion of justification or the notion of rationality. For the assumption that there is just one notion of justification, or just one notion of rationality, is, as the book explains, very misleading. Justification and rationality come in various kinds. And to that extent, at least, we should recognize (...) a variety of notions of justification and rationality. This, at any rate, is one of the morals of Chapter VI. This book, in Chapters I-V, is mainly concerned with the kind of justification and rationality characteristic of a truth-seeker, specifically a seeker of truth about the world impinging upon the senses: the so-called empirical world. Hence the book's title. But since the prominent contemporary approaches to empirical justification are many and varied, so also are the epistemological issues taken up in the following chapters. For instance, there will be questions about so-called coherence and its role, if any, in empirical justification. And there will be questions about social consensus (whatever it is) and its significance, or the lack thereof, to empirical justification. Furthermore, the perennial question of whether, and if so how, empirical knowledge has so-called founda­ tions will be given special attention. (shrink)

In the past few decades, much political-philosophical reflection has been dedicated to the realm of "the political." Many of the key figures in contemporary political theory—Jacques Rancière, Alain Badiou, Reinhart Koselleck, Giorgio Agamben, Ernesto Laclau, and Slavoj i ek, among others—have dedicated themselves to explaining power relations, but in many cases they take the concept of the political for granted, as if it were a given, an eternal essence. In An Archaeology of the Political, Elías José Palti argues that the (...) dimension of reality known as the political is not a natural, transhistorical entity. Instead, he claims that the horizon of the political arose in the context of a series of changes that affirmed the power of absolute monarchies in seventeenth-century Europe and was successively reconfigured from this period up to the present. Palti traces this series of redefinitions accompanying alterations in regimes of power, thus describing a genealogy of the concept of the political. Perhaps most important, An Archaeology of the Political brings to theoretical discussions a sound historical perspective, illuminating the complex influences of both theology and secularization on our understanding of the political in the contemporary world. (shrink)

Organisms change their shape and behavior during ontogenesis in response to incentives—what biologists call “phenotypic plasticity” or what is called here more specifically “behavioral plasticity.” Such plasticity is usually in the direction of enhancing welfare or fitness. In light of basic concepts in economics, such behavioral plasticity is nothing but rationality. Such rationality is not limited to organisms with neural systems. It also characterizes brainless organisms such as plants, fungi, and unicellular organisms. The gist of the article is the distinction (...) between rationality and intelligence. Whereas rationality is ubiquitous in all organisms, intelligence varies in degrees depending on division of labor that may involve the evolution of a neural system. This article aims to defend the universality of rationality—the Organismus oeconomicus hypothesis. It argues that neither the notion of bounded rationality of behavioral economics nor Herbert Simon’s “procedural rationality” can ultimately undermine the Organismus oeconomicus hypothesis. (shrink)

La 4e de couverture indique : "Michel Henry - bien que considéré comme un penseur de la "vie" et des "vivants" - n'a cessé de méditer le fameux memento mori, marque insigne de la destinée de la philosophie. Comme philosophe de la subjectivité, il a identifié la vie à "ce qui ne peut pas mourir", rompant ainsi avec ce qu'il y avait de moribond dans l'onto-thanatologie heideggérienne d'Être et Temps. Cet ouvrage élucide et interprète ces rapports entre la vie et (...) la mort, l'être et le temps. Mais il pose une question de fond : en pensant la vie comme auto-révélation et auto-affection, Michel Henry n'aurait-il pas, de façon idéaliste, esquivé le phénomène incontestable et brutal de la mort, voire barré, par principe, une humaine intelligibilité de ce dernier? En interrogeant l'élaboration henryenne des tensions conceptuelles entre une sotériologie rigoureusement philosophique et les paradoxes de l'eschatologie religieuse, le livre montre les enjeux mais aussi les faiblesses - ou les oublis - de la phénoménologie henryenne quand elle doit bien faire face à la mort.". (shrink)

The notion of hyle seems problematic for a phenomenological foundation of experience. For this very reason, its completed invalidity was generally postulated. At the same time, there are many reflections in Husserlian writings that help us understand it better. This paper attempts to show how hyletic experience, by existing in the lived body, triggers in parallel rhythmic, vibrating, and sonorous experiences as bodily experiences. Sounds are experienced by the body before any reflections or conscious experiences of them. In this way, (...) the aporetical instance of hyletic data founds a proposal of resolution in the fundamental corporeal experience of sound. (shrink)

Die religios-weltanschauliche Neutralitat ist der "Schlusselbegriff" des deutschen Religionsverfassungsrechts. Trotz seiner zentralen Stellung bestehen erhebliche Unsicherheiten uber den genauen Bedeutungsgehalt dieses Verfassungsgrundsatzes. Um eine moglichst ganzheitliche Betrachtung zu ermoglichen, nahert sich Elias Bornemann dem Neutralitatsgebot von mehreren Seiten. Er erarbeitet die historischen Grundlagen des Rechtsbegriffs, beleuchtet Bezuge zur politischen Philosophie und schafft rechtsdogmatische Anknupfungspunkte. Hierauf aufbauend werden in Rechtsprechung und Wissenschaft verschiedene Konzepte religios-weltanschaulicher Neutralitat identifiziert und sowohl auf ihre Verfassungsmassigkeit als auch ihre Leistungsfahigkeit hin untersucht. Die Ordnungs- und (...) Analyseleistungen dieser Arbeit sind damit Struktur und Anleitung fur die kunftige Diskussion uber das verfassungsrechtliche Verhaltnis von Staat und Religion. (shrink)

Subjekt, Objekt und Intersubjektivitat bilden drei der wohl zentralsten Elemente im menschlichen Erkenntnisprozess. Anhand einer kritischen Rekonstruktion der Erkenntnistheorien Hegels und Adornos beleuchtet die vorliegende Arbeit die Dialektik zwischen Subjekt und Objekt der Erkenntnis aus zwei verschiedenen Perspektiven. Durch den grundsatzlichen Paradigmenwechsel Habermas' von der Bewusstseinsphilosophie zu einem kommunikationstheoretischen Paradigma wird es moglich, <I>kommunikative Intersubjektivitat als unverzichtbares Element der Erkenntnis angemessen zu thematisieren.<BR> Der Gang von Hegel uber Adorno zu Habermas wird in der vorliegenden Monographie nicht als ein stetiger Fortschritt (...) verstanden, an dessen Zielpunkt die Habermas'sche Theorie als der Weisheit letzter Schluss stehen wurde. Vielmehr erweist sich der Dreischritt selbst als ein dialektischer, der am Ende, angereichert durch Erfahrungen, wieder in seinen Ausgangspunkt mundet. So endet die Untersuchung letztlich mit dem kommunikationstheoretisch angereicherten Desiderat einer modernen Subjekttheorie.". (shrink)

Abstract In this paper I propose a mereological account of ordinary macro-events of experience that is based on two central features of these entities, namely their spatio-temporal character, and their status as things that belong to event-kinds. I argue that, from the perspective of descriptive metaphysics, these features must be incorporated in the analysis of the part-whole relations of events, and I show the steps involved in achieving this task. Furthermore, I argue that the program initiated here is quite promising: (...) the analysis of event-part that I propose stands up quite well against the more serious objections, and the apparatus I provide for the mereological conditions of events can be easily modified to yield similar conditions for material objects. (shrink)

Philosophie und Gegenwart.--Grundbegriffe der Politik.--Zur Freiheitsproblematik von heute.--Evolution und Revolution.--Mythos, Utopie, Ideologie.--Von der metaphysischen Wissenssoziologie Schelers zur empirischen Soziologie der Gegenwart.--Der Begriff des Gesetzes in den Wissenschaften.--Theorie und Praxis.--Der Wahrheitsbegriff bei Thomas von Aquin.--Philosophie an der Technischen Hochschule.--Ronchamp, ein sakraler Bau von Le Corbusier.--Medizin und Philosophie.--Ansatzpunkte einer philosophischen Analyse des Sports.

The Wisdom of the Christian Faith joins philosophy and New Testament theology to offer a unique product: an anthology of accessible essays by prominent Christian philosophers on topics of religious and philosophical interest.

The COVID-19 pandemic has been one of the most acute global crises in recent history, which profoundly impacted the world across many dimensions. During this period, racism manifested in ways specifically related to the pandemic, including xenophobic sentiments, racial attacks, discriminatory policies, and disparate outcomes across racial/ethnic groups. This paper examines some of the pressing questions about pandemic racism and inequity. We review what research has revealed about the nature and manifestations of racism, the entrenchment of structural racism, and trajectories (...) of racism during COVID-19. (shrink)

Confidentiality is a central bioethical principle governing the provider–patient relationship. Dating back to Hippocrates, new laws have interpreted it for the age of precision medicine and electronic medical records. This is where the discussion of privacy and technology often ends in the scientific health literature when Internet-related technologies have made privacy a much more complex challenge with broad psychological and clinical implications. Beyond the recognised moral duty to protect patients’ health information, clinicians should now advocate a basic right to privacy (...) as a means to safeguard psychological health. The article reviews empirical research into the functions of privacy, the implications for psychological development and the resigned sentiment taking hold regarding the ability to control personal data. The article concludes with a call for legislative, educational and research steps to readjust the equilibrium between the individual and ‘Big Data’. (shrink)

Offering a unique and wide-ranging examination of the theory of knowledge, the new edition of this comprehensive collection deftly blends readings from the foremost classical sources with the work of important contemporary philosophical thinkers. Human Knowledge: Classical and Contemporary Approaches, 3/e, offers philosophical examinations of epistemology from ancient Greek and Roman philosophy ; medieval philosophy ; early modern philosophy ; classical pragmatism and Anglo-American empiricism ; and other influential Anglo-American philosophers. Organized chronologically and thematically, Human Knowledge, 3/e, features exceptionally broad (...) coverage and nontechnical selections that are easily accessible to students. An ideal text for both undergraduate and graduate courses in epistemology, it is enhanced by the editors' substantial general introduction, section overviews, and up-to-date bibliographies. The third edition offers expanded selections on contemporary epistemology and adds selections by Thomas Reid, Richard Rorty, David B. Annis, Richard Feldman and Earl Conee, Ernest Sosa, Barry Stroud, and Louise M. Antony. Human Knowledge, 3/e, offers an unparalleled introduction to our ancient struggle to understand our own intellectual experience. (shrink)

This book explains how qualitative awareness-content of human moral experience can have intentional features indicating God's reality and goodness. Chapters offer a range of topics such as Moral Rapport and Inspiration from God, Experiencing God without Philosophy, Justifying Divine Ways, Co-Valuing with God, and Persons as Deciders in Dissonance.

This volume offers insights into a unique philosophical landscape and enriches current Heidegger studies by offering fresh perspectives on his philosophy that are based on the traditions of Arabic and Persian Islamic philosophy.