This volume provides an overview of recent research on the nature, causes, and consequences of cognitive consistency. In 21 chapters, leading scholars address the pivotal role of consistency principles at various levels of social information processing, ranging from micro-level to macro-level processes. The book's scope encompasses mental representation, processing fluency and motivational fit, implicit social cognition, thinking and reasoning, decision making and choice, and interpersonal processes. Key findings, emerging themes, and current directions in the field are explored, and important questions (...) for future research identified. (shrink)

A central theme in recent research on attitudes is the distinction between deliberate, "explicit" attitudes and automatic, "implicit" attitudes. The present article provides an integrative review of the available evidence on implicit and explicit attitude change that is guided by a distinction between associative and propositional processes. Whereas associative processes are characterized by mere activation independent of subjective truth or falsity, propositional reasoning is concerned with the validation of evaluations and beliefs. The proposed associative-propositional evaluation model makes specific assumptions about (...) the mutual interplay of the 2 processes, implying several mechanisms that lead to symmetric or asymmetric changes in implicit and explicit attitudes. The model integrates a broad range of empirical evidence and implies several new predictions for implicit and explicit attitude change. (shrink)

Publié en Allemagne en 1918, le Nietzsche d'Ernst Bertram, a paru en France dans la très belle traduction qu'en a donné Robert Pitrou en 1932. Repris par le Félin en 1990, ce livre tient une place à part dans l'ensemble des travaux consacrés à Nietzsche par sa façon de dégager symboles, légendes et concepts à partir d'une vue de Venise, une gravure de Dürer, un tableau du Lorrain...

Moral psychology—broadly speaking, the study of how people reason and act morally—has a long and productive history. Initially a subfield of philosophy, it posed groundbreaking questions about the nature of values and virtues, the balance of reason and emotion, and the gap between “is” and “ought.” In the twentieth century, the rise of psychology expanded the a priori philosophical enterprise into an empirical science. In psychology, perspectives of development, social interaction, cognition, and neuroscience brought new understanding and new questions. Over (...) the past few decades, moral psychology has emerged as one of the most vital fields in the human sciences. The Cambridge Handbook of Moral Psychology offers a state-of-the-art guide to this rapidly expanding field. It introduces central questions and recent insights, traces continuing puzzles and debates, and integrates empirical and theoretical perspectives. The interdisciplinary character of the volume reflects the fact that contemporary research in moral psychology is deeply informed by many disciplines and traditions, from its philosophical roots to its latest scientific discoveries in psychology, anthropology, sociology, behavioral economics, and more. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This article deals with a cluster of moral problems raised by the new techniques of human fertilisation. It is concerned primarily with the putative rights of embryos brought into being as a by‐product of the practice of in vitro fertilisation. In this connection it investigates the basis for the ascription of rights to entities and asserts the view that consciousness is a pre‐requisite for the possession of rights. It draws attention to the speciesism implicit in attitudes of some of (...) those who have contributed to the debate. It also examines other issues briefly, raising, for example, the question whether children by AID (or by in vitro fertilisation by donor) must be denied access to information about their genetic fathers; and looking at objections to the new techniques based on the so‐called unnaturalness of the procedures involved. (shrink)

How is art both distinct and different from the rest of human life, while also mattering in and for it? This central yet overlooked question in contemporary philosophy of art is at the heart of Georg Bertram's new aesthetic. Drawing on the resources of diverse philosophical traditions – analytic philosophy, French philosophy, and German post-Kantian philosophy – his book offers a systematic account of art as a human practice. One that remains connected to the whole of life.

Decisions in healthcare are made against the background of cultural and philosophical definitions of disease, sickness and illness. These concepts or definitions affect both health policy and research , as well as individual encounters between patients and physicians . It is therefore necessary for evidence-based medicine to consider whether any of the definitions underlying research prior to the hierarchisation of knowledge are indeed compatible with its own epistemological principles.

Anerkennung soll die Leerstelle ausfüllen, die mit dem Zusammenbruch metaphysischer Systeme aufgetreten ist. Die Ethik sozialer Anerkennung wird damit aber mit Erwartungen überfrachtet. Durch technologische Veränderungen verändern sich permanent die Statusbestimmungen: Die Autonomie des Menschen konkurriert mit künstlich-intelligenten Maschinen, die Leidensfähigkeit mit der des Tieres, die Individualität mit der digitalen Selbstinszenierung und die Geschöpflichkeit mit der technologischen Selbstvergöttlichung. Die Beiträge suchen nach Bedingungen sozialer Anerkennung, die nicht zirkulär ausgehandelt werden können, sondern Kategorien einbringen, die auch von Menschen verwendet werden, wenn (...) sie von Gott sprechen. Damit soll die Basis einer theologischen Anerkennungstheorie gelegt werden. (shrink)

Der vorliegende Band enthält Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermachers (1768–1834) sämtliche erhaltenen und erschlossenen Briefe aus den Jahren 1809–1810. Bereits 1808 hatte sich Schleiermacher endgültig in Berlin niedergelassen und war in Konzeption und Berufungsfragen aktiv an der Berliner Universitätsgründung beteiligt. Im Mai 1809 heiratete Schleiermacher Henriette von Willich, die 20 Jahre jüngere Witwe eines verstorben Freundes. Aus der knapp einjährigen Verlobungszeit 1808–1809 liegen über 100 Briefe des Brautpaares vor. Die bereits im Vorfeld der Universitätsgründung begonnen Vorlesungen setzte Schleiermacher 1810 als ordentlicher (...) Professor fort – 1809 trat er seine Stelle als reformierter Prediger an der Dreifaltigkeitskirche an. Die Korrespondenz Schleiermachers mit Familie, Freundinnen und Freunden sowie zahlreichen Kollegen zeichnet ein eindringliches politisches, geistes- und alltagsgeschichtliches Panorama der Zeit und gewährt einen Einblick in die Entstehung des Schleiermacherschen Werkes. (shrink)

Der Berliner Theologe, Philosoph und Reformer Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher (1768–1834) war weitmaschig vernetzt und führte eine umfangreiche Korrespondenz. Band 15 der 5. Abteilung der historisch-kritischen Gesamtausgabe Schleiermachers (KGA) enthält die Briefe von und an Schleiermacher der Jahre 1819 und 1820. Das Ende des zweiten Jahrzehnts ist für Berlin und für Preußen von besonderer politischer Virulenz. Es steht unter dem Vorzeichen zunehmender Repression gegen liberale Kräfte durch den Preußischen Stadt. Verhängnisvoll ist die Ermordung des Schriftstellers Kotzebue durch den Burschenschaftler Sand. (...) Der Trostbrief des Berliner Theologen De Wette an die Mutter des Täters dient der Regierung zum Anlass, Rechte und Freiheiten der Berliner Professorenschaft einzuschränken. Schleiermacher, der selbst immer wieder im Fokus der Demagogenverfolgung stand, setzt sich nachdrücklich und zugleich taktisch klug für die Freiheit der Wissenschaften und der Kirche ein. 1819/20 war Schleiermacher zum vierten und letzten Mal Dekan der Theologischen Fakultät und setzte sich u.a. für die Unterstützung bedürftiger Studenten ein. Privat ist das Jahr 1820 auch von der Geburt seines ersten und einzigen Sohns geprägt. Wissenschaftlich erweitert sich sein System der Wissenschaften um die 1819 erstmals gehaltene Vorlesungen über Ästhetik. Zugleich begann er, seine Dogmatik, der „Glaubenslehre“, in Buchform auszuarbeiten. (shrink)

Mit der neuzeitlichen Säkularisierung verliert auch der Protestantismus seinen Volkskirchencharakter. Das hat eine Neuorientierung zur Folge. An die Stelledes theistischen Gottesbildes tritt das Paradox vom 'abwesenden' Gott. Der Autor interpretiert das Glaubensparadox als Widerfahrnis von Befreiung und Verpflichtung durch den Anderen in der 'Spur' Gottes. Er diskutiert diese für die Zivilgesellschaft relevanten Potentiale mit Feministischer Theologie, mit der Umgestaltung des Erlösungschristentums in einen Protestantismus der Versöhnung mit unserer Endlichkeit und der Schöpfungswelt. Vom methodischen Gesichtspunkt wählt der Autor einen phänomenologisch-dekonstruktiven Ansatz (...) im Gespräch mit Bonhoeffer, Nancy, Levinas und mit der protestantischen Tradition. (shrink)

A widespread assumption in recent research on attitudes is that self-reported evaluations reflect conscious attitudes, whereas indirectly assessed evaluations reflect unconscious attitudes. The present article reviews the available evidence regarding unconscious features of indirectly assessed “implicit” attitudes. Distinguishing between three different aspects of attitudes, we conclude that people sometimes lack conscious awareness of the origin of their attitudes, but that lack of source awareness is not a distinguishing feature of indirectly assessed versus self-reported attitudes, there is no evidence that people (...) lack conscious awareness of indirectly assessed attitudes per se, and there is evidence showing that, under some conditions, indirectly assessed attitudes influence other psychological processes outside of conscious awareness. Implications for the concept of “implicit attitudes” are discussed. (shrink)

In this provocative monograph, Bertram Malle describes behavior explanations as having a dual nature -- as being both cognitive and social acts -- and proposes...

Highlights the roles of intention and intentionality in social cognition.

Robot ethics encompasses ethical questions about how humans should design, deploy, and treat robots; machine morality encompasses questions about what moral capacities a robot should have and how these capacities could be computationally implemented. Publications on both of these topics have doubled twice in the past 10 years but have often remained separate from one another. In an attempt to better integrate the two, I offer a framework for what a morally competent robot would look like and discuss a number (...) of ethical questions about the design, use, and treatment of such moral robots in society. Instead of searching for a fixed set of criteria of a robot’s moral competence I identify the multiple elements that make up human moral competence and probe the possibility of designing robots that have one or more of these human elements, which include: moral vocabulary; a system of norms; moral cognition and affect; moral decision making and action; moral communication. Juxtaposing empirical research, philosophical debates, and computational challenges, this article adopts an optimistic perspective: if robotic design truly commits to building morally competent robots, then those robots could be trustworthy and productive partners, caretakers, educators, and members of the human community. Moral competence does not resolve all ethical concerns over robots in society, but it may be a prerequisite to resolve at least some of them. (shrink)

The global ecological crisis is upon us. From global warming to the long-term implications of ocean acidification, air and water pollution, deforestation, and the omnipresent dangers of nuclear technology the future of our planetary home is threatened. Yet in the midst of the unfolding crisis, the conventional ideologies of the twentieth century and their representations of nature remain unchallenged by both the defenders of capitalism and capitalism's most radical critics. The Distortion of Nature's Image illustrates how the anti-naturalism of late (...) capitalist society, in which nature is reified into the emptiness of mere matter, simply a thing to be dominated, is subtly complemented by the failure of the Left to go both beyond the historic limitations of Marx's ninteenth-century viewpoint and beyond anarchism's blind faith in "natural law." However, an alternative for comprehending nature and the ecological crisis as historical and social phenomena remains open in the dialectical naturalism of Western Marxism and Murray Bookchin's social ecology. By examining in closer detail how Bookchin's social ecology politicizes the concept of nature, as well as how precursory models in Western Marxist thought provide a foundation for this, Damian Gerber illustrates how the notion of an ecological society remains a decisively political question. (shrink)

This article explores several entanglements between human judgments of intentionality and morality (blame and praise). After proposing a model of people’s folk concept of intentionality I discuss three topics. First, considerations of a behavior’s intentionality a ff ect people’s praise and blame of that behavior, but one study suggests that there may be an asymmetry such that blame is more affected than praise. Second, the concept of intentionality is constitutive of many legal judgments (e.g., of murder vs. manslaughter), and one (...) study illustrates people’s subtle considerations of intentionality in making those judgments. Third, controversial recent studies suggest that moral considerations can affect judgments of intentionality, and an asymmetry may exist such that blame a ff ects those judgments more than praise. I report two new studies that may shed light on these recent findings, and I discuss several theoretical models that might account for the impact of moral considerations on intentionality judgments and for the relationship between the two more generally. (shrink)

New insight into the religious dimension of Bruegel’s art. With a number of highly original case studies, the volume illuminates Bruegel’s multifaceted engagement with the contemporary religious concepts and practices of his era.