This essay contrasts Nietzsche’s remarks on elite education with W.E.B. Du Bois’ demand for democratized education. The essay takes their remarks as springboards for a twenty-first century philosophy of education rather than an historical account of their philosophies. Both thinkers cultivated Kant and Hegel’s dream that the spirit of freedom guided by reason would unite all the world’s peoples. Both held that education was key to realizing the dream. Their judgments about qualifying for education separated them. Nietzsche insisted that only (...) the elite should receive the fullest measure of education. Du Bois believed that in the future virtually every human being would receive a university-level education. The essay’s principal point is to show how contemporary technology can make Du Bois’ dream a reality. An African philosopher’s working model demonstrates a path to universal university education. (shrink)

In the twenty-first century, Stephen Hawking proclaimed the death of philosophy. Only science can address philosophy’s perennial questions about human values. The essay first examines Nietzsche’s nineteenth century view to the contrary that philosophy alone can create values. A critique of Nietzsche’s contention that philosophy rather than science is competent to judge values follows. The essay then analyzes Edward O. Wilson’s claim that his scientific research provides empirically-based answers to philosophy’s questions about human values. Wilson’s bold new hypothesis about the (...) ‘social conquest of the earth’ challenges Nietzsche’s vision of philosophy’s mission. Confronting both Nietzsche and Wilson, the essay then considers three theoretical proposals for a consilience of philosophy, science, engineering and technology. The conclusion presents a working African model of consilience that addresses the existential problem of poverty in the Global South. (shrink)

Previous studies have found Forsyth’s Ethical Position Questionnaire (EPQ) to vary between countries, but none has made a systematic evaluation of its psychometric properties across consumers from many countries. Using confirmatory factor analysis and multi-group LISREL analysis, this paper explores the factor structure of the EPQ and the measurement equivalence in five societies: Austria, Britain, Brunei, Hong Kong and USA. The results suggest that the modified scale, measuring idealism and relativism, was applicable in all five societies. Equivalence was found across (...) Britain, Brunei and USA, but the original scale cannot be used validly. (shrink)

In 1972, R.C. Lewontin concluded that it follows from the fact that the large majority of human genetic variation (≈ 85%) is among individuals within local populations that racial taxonomy is unjustified. Three decades later, Edwards demonstrated that while the accuracy with which individuals may be assigned to groups is poor for a single locus, consideration of multi‐locus data allows for highly accurate assignments. Edwards concluded that Lewontin's dismissal of racial taxonomy was unwarranted. Edwards misidentified the aim of Lewontin's critique, (...) which was directed at the utility of racial classification and not at assigning individuals to groups using genetic data. Moreover, Edwards conflated distinct kinds of correlation when sketching out his argument. If we follow Edwards’ argument to its natural terminus, it becomes clear that it is consideration of all of the correlation structure among local groups in human genetic data that renders racial taxonomy scientifically useless. Lewontin considers the correlation structure relevant to his analysis of racial taxonomy and does not make his eponymous misstep. Rather, critics of Lewontin who use racial taxonomies in their work are the primary offenders when it comes to committing Lewontin's fallacy. (shrink)

Interaction between Peter Singer and Christian ethics, to the extent that it has happened at all, has been unproductive and often antagonistic. Singer sees himself as leading a 'Copernican Revolution' against a sanctity of life ethic, while many Christians associate his work with a 'culture of death'. Charles Camosy shows that this polarized understanding of the two positions is a mistake. While their conclusions about abortion and euthanasia may differ, there is surprising overlap in Christian and Singerite arguments, and (...) disagreements are interesting and fruitful. Furthermore, it turns out that Christians and Singerites can even make common cause, for instance in matters such as global poverty and the dignity of non-human animals. Peter Singer and Christian ethics are far closer than almost anyone has imagined, and this book is valuable to those who are interested in fresh thinking about the relationship between religious and secular ethics. (shrink)

Philosophy confronts two existential crises: the threats to its existence from scientists like Stephen Hawking who claim that philosophy is dead; and the threat to life itself from catastrophic climate change. The essay’s first theoretical part critiques Nietzsche’s claim that philosophy’s primary function is to guarantee the future of life. The essay’s second practical part claims that philosophy must meet the challenge of life’s extinction through a revised model for ethics in education. Taking its start from recent conceptualizations of philosophy (...) as a ‘field discipline,’ this part considers African American models for delivering ethics in education to under-resourced communities. The third part shows how these theoretical models may be actualized in the practice of an African field philosopher. (shrink)

Evolutionary investigations of human crania typically take a limited view of cranial diversity as they discount the possibility that human cranial variation could simply be due to the effects of random genetic drift, gene flow and mutation in favor of natural selection and developmental changes. Natural selection alone cannot explain similarities between patterns of cranial and molecular diversity observed in humans. It appears that the amount of phenotypic variance in the human cranium decreases at the population level as a function (...) of distance from Sub‐Saharan Africa much in the same way as observed for human molecular data.1 BioEssays 29:1185–1188, 2007. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Durkheim's Ghosts is a fascinating presentation of the tradition of social theory influenced by Emile Durkheim's thinking on the social foundations of knowledge. From Saussure and Levi-Strauss to Foucault, Bourdieu and Derrida, today's criticisms of modern politics and culture owe an important, if unacknowledged, debt to Durkheim. These engaging and innovative essays by leading sociologist Charles Lemert bring together his writings on the contributions of French social theory past and present. Rather than merely interpret the theories, Lemert uses them (...) to explore the futures of sociology, social theory, and culture studies. Durkheim's Ghosts offers the reader original insights into Durkheim's legacy and the wider French traditions for the cultural and social sciences. Of special note is the book's new and exciting theory of culture and semiotics. Provocative, scholarly, imaginative and ambitious this book will be invaluable to anyone interested in social theory, culture, and intellectual history of modern times. (shrink)

The present paper is a survey of the economics of survival, a branch of ecological economics that stresses the preservation of the opportunities of future generations over an extended time horizon. It outlines the main analytical foundation of the branch – in which the concept of entropy is a major building block –, and its analysis of the interaction between the economic system and the environment. Regarding its outlook of the future, we see that the founders of the branch were (...) mainly concerned with the consequences of a serious depletion of natural resources – particularly the energetic capital of the earth. More recently, however, emphasis is being placed on problems that stem from the fragility of the global ecosystem in face of the disturbances caused by the entropic acceleration imposed by mankind. It is feared that the ongoing expansion of the scale of the economy may bring about irreversible damages to vital environmental functions, such as protection against undesirable consequences of solar radiation, maintenance of temperature within a range that will support life, and preservation of ecosystem resiliency. (shrink)

Healthcare ethics committees (HEC) have emerged as institutional forums for addressing bioethical dilemmas. Psychiatrists have important roles to play on these committees. Their skills in group process assessment, mental status examination, and character assessment have diverse applications. Psychiatrists can facilitate communication within the committee and as HEC-based clinical ethics consultants. HECs must be concerned with how they arrive at ethical decisions, guarding against political influence or individual monopolization. Psychiatrists can assist these efforts as organizational consultants to HECs. The perception of (...) psychiatrists as reflective, tolerant of ambiguity, humanizing, and approachable about ethical aspects of health care suggests they would make excellent committee leaders. Psychiatrists also have important committee roles to play as ethics educators and policy makers. More demographic data is needed to investigate psychiatrist participation on HECs. Studies of how they are perceived by their ethics committee colleagues may reveal new roles and potential pitfalls for HEC psychiatrists. (shrink)

Timothy Murphy has done those of us in the field of bioethics a great service by being forthright about how irreligious centers of power work against theology and theologians. This has opened the door to direct and honest conversation about some facts that were previously known but rarely discussed publicly. Now, eight years after Murphy’s important article appeared in the American Journal of Bioethics, there is room to engage the facts and arguments surrounding the role for theology in the field. (...) It is important, first of all, to agree that if theology is to be excluded while other normative traditions included this must be defended on the basis of a coherent set of defensible claims, not merely raw assertions and power plays. Once the field comes to terms with the fact that no coherent set of defensible claims exist which can justify excluding theology from the field, this will create the conditions for the possibility of the kind of intellectual solidarity which can transform bioethics into a field that is at once much more diverse and inclusive while also of its very nature interested in robust debate which includes references first principles and metaphysical foundations. (shrink)