George Herbert Mead's lectures at the University of Chicago are more important to understanding Mead's views on social psychology than some commentators, such as Hans Joas, have emphasized. Mead's 1898-99 lecture series, preserved through the notes of his student H. Heath Bawden, demonstrate his devotion to Hegelianism as a method of thinking and how this influenced his non-reductive approach to functionalist psychology. In addition, Mead's breadth of historical knowledge and his commitments in the natural and social sciences are on display (...) here, culminating in the Darwinian observation that human animals only achieve the degree of control they have over their environment by the achievement of social organization. (shrink)

Since there have been many recent occurrences of alleged wrongdoing by business persons and other professionals, it seems additional ethics research is needed to obtain knowledge that will impact real-world behavior. An empirical study assessed business students’ impressions of hypothetical wrongdoers and whistleblowers. To some extent, impressions of an unethical executive and a whistleblower were influenced by the same variables and in opposite directions. Female respondents judged the unethical executive less favorably and the whistleblower more favorably than did males. The (...) executive was rated less favorably and the whistleblower more favorably when the executive sought a small gain than when the goal was a large gain or prevention of a loss of either magnitude. Some manipulations, however, impacted impressions of one actor, but not the other. Perhaps ethics training can make students aware that issue␣framing and moral intensity components may bias decisions. (shrink)

Since there have been many recent occurrences of alleged wrongdoing by business persons and other professionals, it seems additional ethics research is needed to obtain knowledge that will impact real-world behavior. An empirical study assessed business students' impressions of hypothetical wrongdoers and whistleblowers. To some extent, impressions of an unethical executive and a whistleblower were influenced by the same variables and in opposite directions. Female respondents judged the unethical executive less favorably and the whistleblower more favorably than did males. The (...) executive was rated less favorably and the whistleblower more favorably when the executive sought a small gain than when the goal was a large gain or prevention of a loss of either magnitude. Some manipulations, however, impacted impressions of one actor, but not the other. Perhaps ethics training can make students aware that issue framing and moral intensity components may bias decisions. (shrink)

Interdisciplinary collaboration figures centrally in frontier research in many fields. Participants in inter-disciplinary projects face problems they would not encounter within their own disciplines. Among those are problems of mutual understanding, of finding a language to communicate both within projects and with the scientific community and society at large, and of needing to master concepts and methods of different disciplines. We think that a concentrated research and development effort is necessary to analyze, on the one hand, cognitive conditions of successful (...) understanding, communication, and interaction and, on the other, to develop specific tools and methods that support and facilitate inter-disciplinarity both in practice and in educational projects that prepare future generations of professionals within and outside of academia. Those tools need to be developed and their cognitive efficiency measured. (shrink)

George Herbert Mead's early lectures at the University of Chicago are more important to understanding the genesis of his views in social psychology than some commentators, such as Hans Joas, have emphasized. Mead's lecture series "The Evolution of the Psychical Element," preserved through the notes of student H. Heath Bawden, demonstrate his devotion to Hegelianism as a method of thinking and how this influenced his non-reductionistic approach to functional psychology. In addition, Mead's breadth of historical knowledge as well as his (...) commitments in the natural and social sciences are on display here, culminating in the Darwinian observation that human animals only achieve the degree of control they have over their environment by the achievement of social organization. (shrink)

Contents: PART I: AESTHETICS OF ARCHITECTURE: QUESTIONS. Francis SPARSHOTT: The Aesthetics of Architecture and the Politics of Space. Arnold BERLEANT: Architecture and the Aesthetics of Continuity. Stephen DAVIES: Is Architecture Art? PART II: NATURE OF ARCHITECTURE. B.R. TILGHMAN: Architecture, Expression, and the Understanding of a Culture. David NOVITZ: Architectural Brilliance and the Constraints of Time. Michael H. MITIAS: Expression in Architecture. Ralf WEBER: The Myth of Meaningful Forms. Michael H. MITIAS: Is Meaning in Architecture a Myth? A Response to Ralf (...) Weber. PART III: AESTHETIC EXPERIENCE IN ARCHITECTURE. Allen CARLSON: Existence, Location, and Function: The Appreciation of Architecture. Martin DONOUGHO: Spaced Out or Folded In? Trends in Architectural Choreography. Tom LEDDY: Dialogical Architecture. Roy T. DECKER: Tactility and Imagination: Considerations of Aesthetic Experience in Architecture. Robert GINSBERG: Aesthetics in Hiroshima. The Architecture of Remembrance. (shrink)

This article aims to read feminist new materialisms (Barad), together with ‘postulated’ linguistic or cultural primacy of Queer Theory (Butler), to show how both are engaged in similar critical-ethical endeavours. The central argument is that the criticism of Barad and new materialisms misses Butler’s materialistic insights due to a narrow interpretation of Butler's alleged social-constructivist position. There is, therefore, a specific focus on where they both make similar ethical appeals. Moreover, the article relies on Adorno's negative dialectic to highlight an (...) interpretation of Barad and Butler as being part of the same dialectical movement, in which materialism and idealism fluctuate in their mutual criticisms, thus continuing the procession towards 'new knowledge' and emancipation, or freedom, through their motions back and forth. (shrink)

The moral enhancement of human beings is a constant theme in the history of humanity. Today, faced with the threats of a new, globalised world, concern over this matter is more pressing. For this reason, the use of biotechnology to make human beings more moral has been considered. However, this approach is dangerous and very controversial. The purpose of this article is to argue that the use of another new technology, AI, would be preferable to achieve this goal. Whilst several (...) proposals have been made on how to use AI for moral enhancement, we present an alternative that we argue to be superior to other proposals that have been developed. (shrink)

Dan Brock has asserted that those who claim that the early embryo has full moral status are not consistent, and that the rationality of such a position is dubious when it is adopted from a religious perspective. I argue that both claims are flawed. Starting with the second claim, which is grounded in Brock’s moral abstolutist position, I argue that Brock has provided no argument on why the religious position should be less rational than the secular position. With regard to (...) the first claim, I argue that those who hold the view that the early embryo has full moral status can be consistent even if they do not oppose sexual reproduction, even if they do not grieve as much over the loss of embryos as over the loss of other humans, even if they prefer to save one child instead of 100 embryos in the event of fire, and even if they do not accept racism and sexism. (shrink)

The scope of embryo research in the UK has been expanded by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Regulations 2001. Two advisory bodies—the Chief Medical Officer’s Expert Group and the House of Lords’ Select Committee—presented various arguments in favour of embryo research. One of these is the view that, just as lottery tickets have relatively little value before the draw because of the low probability of their being the winning ticket, early embryos have relatively little value because of the presumed low (...) probability that they will mature into more developed embryos. This argument from probability is questioned in this paper, as well as the contention that allowing embryo destruction is incompatible with the view that embryos have full moral status. Although I challenge Savulescu’s view that early embryos should be entered into a lottery in which they are subjected to the probability of being destroyed , a revised version of Thomson’s analogy of the famous violinist defies the view that the position that the embryo has full moral status is incompatible with qualified support for embryo destruction. (shrink)

A timely book that uses science fiction to provoke reflection and discussion on philosophical issues From the nature of mind to the ethics of AI and neural enhancement, science fiction thought experiments fire the philosophical imagination, encouraging us to think outside of the box about classic philosophical problems and even to envision new ones. Science Fiction and Philosophy explores puzzles about virtual reality, transhumanism, whether time travel is possible, the nature of artificial intelligence, and topics in neuroethics, among other timely (...) issues. This thought-provoking volume is suitable for students and general readers but also examines new and more advanced topics of interest to seasoned philosophers and scientists. Susan Schneider is Assistant Professor in the department of philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania and an Affiliated Faculty Member at the Institutes for Research in Cognitive Science and Center for Cognitive Neuroscience. (shrink)

Borders are essentially imaginary structures, but their effects are very real. This volume explores both geopolitical and conceptual borders through an interdisciplinary lens, bridging the disciplines of philosophy and literature. With contributions from scholars around the world, this collection closely examines the concepts of race, nationality, gender, and sexuality in order to reveal the paradoxical ambiguities inherent in these seemingly solid binary oppositions, while critiquing structures of power that produce and police these borders. As a political paradigm, liminality may be (...) embraced by marginal subjects and communities, further blurring the boundaries between oppressive distinctions and categories. (shrink)

This chapter provides an introduction to The Ultimate South Park and Philosophy. South Park is one of the most important series on TV, because the show isn't afraid to lampoon the extremist fanatics that are associated with any social, ethical, economical, or religious position. This is extremely important and necessary in our diverse society of free and autonomous persons who hold a plurality of beliefs and values. Fanatics usually stop thinking issues through and, ultimately, they're primed to cause harm to (...) others through their actions. Religious fanatics get hit pretty hard by the creators of South Park and rightly so. Philosophy deals with the love and pursuit of wisdom, and this quest makes us ask what kinds of things really exist, what we're justified in believing, what we ought to do, and how we ought to be living, among other things. (shrink)

Von der Antike und der Spätantike bis ins Mittelalter und in die Neuzeit stellt die Kommentierung der aristotelischen Schriften eine der fundamentalen Formen philosophischer Tätigkeit dar. In diesem Sammelband werden wesentliche Etappen der griechischen Kommentartradition zu den Schriften des Aristoteles sowie ihre philosophische und kulturgeschichtliche Bedeutung an ausgewählten Beispielen analysiert und interpretiert. Die Autorinnen und Autoren setzen sich dabei sowohl mit den Manuskripten und der Überlieferung einzelner Schriften als auch mit der Rezeption und Weiterentwicklung der Aristotelischen Philosophie auseinander. Der Kernbestand (...) der hier versammelten Beiträge geht auf die dreitägige internationale Konferenz „Aristoteles-Kommentare und ihre Überlieferung in Spätantike, Mittelalter und Renaissance" (26.–28.10.2017) zurück, die dank der Förderung der Karl und Gertrud Abel-Stiftung an der Universität Hamburg am Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures stattgefunden hat. (shrink)

Philosophers ask just whose expression, if anyone’s, we hear in lyric poetry. Walton provides a novel possibility: it’s the reader who “uses” the poem (just as a speech giver uses a speech) who makes the language expressive. But worries arise once we consider poems in particular social or political settings, those which require a strong self-other distinction, or those with expressions that should not be disassociated from the subjects whose experience they draw from. One way to meet this challenge is (...) to consider the poem expressive of a plural subject, which frees us from looking for a particular individual whose voice we hear in the work, whether she be fictional or actual. Some lyrics give voice to a group whose experience is attended to in the work. This may be done through a posited fictional speaker, but the ontology of the speaker is shown to be less important. Attending to a group whose concerns are voiced allows us to explain how poems can manage to address our-worldly concerns even when lacking actual persons whose expressions we encounter in the poems. (shrink)

Conciliationism is a view—well, a family of views—in the epistemology of disagreement. The idea, simply put, is that, in a wide range of cases where you find yourself in disagreement with another reasoner about the truth of some proposition, you are rationally obliged to adjust your credence in the direction of hers. Conciliationism enjoys a fair bit of prima facie plausibility. Most versions of it, however, suffer from a common (and rather obvious) problem: self-incrimination. Although there is some recognition in (...) the recent literature on disagreement that there is a problem in this vicinity, it, more often than not, is completely ignored. When it is not completely ignored, both the conciliationists and their critics tend to frame the problem incorrectly. As a result, they end up focusing most of their attention on pseudo-problems rather than the genuine worry. Furthermore, even when they have hit on the genuine worry, conciliationists have tended to give surprising and implausible responses to it. Even by their own lights, conciliationists aren’t justified in believing their conciliationist theses. In this paper, I argue that it’s time to come clean. Time to look for a view on the epistemic significance of disagreement that we can actually be justified in believing. (shrink)

Training in scientific integrity continues to be an important topic in universities and other research institutions. Its main goal is to prevent scientific misconduct and promote good scientific practice. However, there is still no consensus on how scientific integrity should be taught. Moreover, the perspective of those who receive such training is often underrepresented. Yet it is precisely their interests and needs that must be considered when developing educational programs. Against this backdrop, we conducted a mixed-methods study with the goal (...) of capturing students’ perspectives on the teaching of scientific integrity. Using our online Scientific Integrity course, we explore what specific aspects of digital teaching on scientific integrity are valued, and explore other topics of interest from students’ perspectives on scientific integrity. The article presents (1) students’ self-assessment before (Q1) and after (Q2) taking the online Scientific Integrity course at the RWTH Aachen University in Germany (2) students’ feedback on the course format, video, exam, organization, and support (Q2) (3) a list of other topics of interest in the area of scientific integrity (Q2). The research outcomes demonstrate an improvement in the study participants’ self-assessment after following the online course and there is a general satisfaction among the students in regard to the course digital format and its components although a desire to have more exchange and discussion was expressed. Further topics of interest in the area of scientific integrity that study participants would like to learn about have a practical appeal and among others include research pressure, examples of applications, preventive measures, theory of science, citation rules, funding of university research. Although the results relate to our course, they provide insight into students’ perspectives on online teaching of scientific integrity. Thus, they may be helpful to higher education institutions developing online courses on scientific integrity that are tailored to university students. (shrink)

In this paper, I respond to recent attempts by philosophers to deny the existence of something that is both real and significant: reasonable disagreements between epistemic peers. In their arguments against the possibility of such disagreements, skeptical philosophers typically invoke one or more of the following: indifference reasoning , equal weight principles , and uniqueness theses . I take up each of these in turn, finding ample reason to resist them. The arguments for indifference reasoning and equal weight principles tend (...) to overlook the possibility of a certain kind of agnostic credal state which I call deep agnosticism , the possibility of which derails the arguments. The arguments for uniqueness theses tend to invoke a flawed understanding of the evidential support relation. When these problems and misunderstandings are brought into the light and corrected, the threat to reasonable disagreement vanishes. (shrink)

The human neuroendocrine system is highly sensitive to the social environment. Hormones such as testosterone and cortisol are released in response to a wide variety of social stimuli. The evolutionary functions of this sensitivity are not well understood. Longitudinal monitoring of hormones, behavior, and social environment is a promising research paradigm for solving these evolutionary puzzles.

This is a study of the nature of time. In it, redeploying an argument first presented by McTaggart, the author argues that although time itself is real, tense is not. He accounts for the appearance of the reality of tense - our sense of the passage of time, and the fact that our experience occurs in the present - by showing how time is indispensable as a condition of action. Time itself is further analysed, and Dr Mellor gives answers to (...) most of the metaphysical questions it provokes, concerning the relation of time to space, the dissection of time, and its relation to change and causation. (shrink)

ABSTRACT On 22 January 2001, the UK became the first country to approve of embryonic stem cell research by passing the Human Fertilisation (Research Purposes) Regulations 2001, which legislated new research purposes for which early embryos can be used, in addition to those approved by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990. Legal advisory committees, most notably the Chief Medical Officer's Expert Group and the House of Lords’ Select Committee, have offered various reasons, which can also be found in the (...) ethics literature, to justify this change. Those examined here are the views that: 1. Early embryos lack relevant qualities (or ‘the argument from lack of qualities’) and 2. Early embryos only have a potentiality to become humans with moral status (or ‘the argument from potentiality’). The validity of these arguments is questioned and a case is made for egalitarian speciesism. Embryos have moral status (used here in the restricted sense of the status possessed by all members of the class of beings which deserve the greatest moral significance in equal measure). They have more value than the value that should be assigned to nonhuman beings from the start of fertilisation. Current UK legislation on embryo research is immoral. (shrink)

_Enlightenment from the _South Park_ gang faster than you can say, "Screw you guys, I'm going home"!_ _The Ultimate South Park and Philosophy: Respect My Philosophah!_ presents a compilation of serious philosophical reflections on the twisted insights voiced by characters in TV’s most irreverent animated series. Offers readers a philosophically smart and candid approach to one of television’s most subversive and controversial shows as it enters its 17th season Draws sharp parallels between the irreverent nature of _South Park_ and the (...) inquiring and skeptical approach of Western philosophy Journeys deep beyond the surface of the show’s scatological humor to address the perennial questions raised in _South Park_ and the contemporary social and political issues that inspire each episode Utilizes familiar characters and episodes to illustrate such philosophical topics as moral relativism, freedom of expression, gay marriage, blasphemy, democracy, feminism, animal ethics, existential questions, and much more It’s a Bigger, Longer & Uncut version of the highly acclaimed _South Park and Philosophy: You Know, I Learned Something Today_—and is guaranteed to be much funnier than killing Kenny. (shrink)

This book presents the reader with a comprehensive and structured understanding of the ethics of Artificial Intelligence (AI). It describes the main ethical questions that arise from the use of AI in different areas, as well as the contribution of various academic disciplines such as legal policy, environmental sciences, and philosophy of technology to the study of AI. AI has become ubiquitous and is significantly changing our lives, in many cases, for the better, but it comes with ethical challenges. These (...) challenges include issues with the possibility and consequences of autonomous AI systems, privacy and data protection, the development of a surveillance society, problems with the design of these technologies and inequalities in access to AI technologies. This book offers specialists an instrument to develop a rigorous understanding of the main debates in emerging ethical questions around AI. The book will be of great relevance to experts in applied and technology ethics and to students pursuing degrees in applied ethics and, more specifically, in AI ethics. (shrink)

With right-wing-extremist and -populist parties and movements on the rise throughout the world, the concept of authoritarianism has proven to be particularly valuable to explain the psychological underpinnings of these tendencies. Even though many scales to measure the different dimensions of authoritarianism exist, no short screening instrument has been tested and validated on a large scale so far. The present study examines the psychometric properties of the screening instrument Authoritarianism – Ultrashort in three representative German samples. Using exploratory and confirmatory (...) factor analysis, the A-US demonstrated acceptable internal consistency. Model fit was good and correlations with related constructs indicated convergent validity in both samples. Construct validity was demonstrated using the original version of the scale. The instrument proved to be invariant across sex, employment status, and education, but not across different age groups. Finally, the analyses showed that differences in the A-US are associated with sociodemographic variables. Potential causes and effects of these findings are discussed. Based on these results, the A-US proved to be a valuable and highly efficient tool to screen for authoritarian tendencies. (shrink)

In this paper, I provide some evidence for the view that a common charge against those who adopt vegetarianism is that they would be sentimental. I argue that this charge is pressed frequently by those who adopt moral absolutism, a position that I reject, before exploring the question if vegetarianism might make sense. I discuss three concerns that might motivate those who adopt vegetarian diets, including a concern with the human health and environmental costs of some alternative diets, a concern (...) about inflicting pain on animals, and a concern with the killing of animals. While I argue that vegetarianism does not make sense in some situations, I hope that this paper shows that there are many good reasons why the adoption of vegetarian, and—even more so—vegan diets might be appropriate in some situations. In carving out this position, I focus primarily on the question whether a morally relevant distinction between the killing of plants and the killing of animals should be made. I engage primarily with the views of two of the most prominent authors on this issue, arguing that neither Peter Singer nor Tom Regan provide a satisfactory account on the ethics of killing nonhuman organisms. Two views are challenged in particular, the view that relatively simple animals such as molluscs, as well as plants, lack awareness, and the view that animals without a preference to continue living stand to lose little or nothing by being killed. I provide some evidence to support the claim that many share my view that it is more problematic to kill animals than to kill plants, before analyzing why some suppress the negative feelings they associate with killing animals. By exploring these issues I hope to shed some light on the issue of whether the feelings of those who adopt vegetarianism are sentimental or make sense, and to stimulate reflection amongst those with an interest in food ethics. (shrink)

This chapter considers an epistemological argument from disagreement which concludes that many of most people’s moral beliefs do not amount to knowledge. Various ways of understanding the argument are considered and it is argued that each relies on an epistemic principle that is under-motivated, overgeneralizes, and is indeed self-incriminating. These problems, it is suggested, infect many conciliationist theses in the epistemology of disagreement. Knowledge, it is argued, can withstand not only acknowledged peer disagreement, but also disagreement with the acknowledged experts. (...) If this is right, then the sort of epistemic principle that is required to move from moral disagreement to the conclusion that many of most people’s moral beliefs do not amount to knowledge has landed well off the mark. (shrink)

The argument has been made that future generations of human beings are being harmed unjustifiably by the actions individuals commit today. This paper addresses what it might mean to harm future generations, whether we might harm them, and what our duties toward future generations might be. After introducing the Global Health Impact (GHI) concept as a unit of measurement that evaluates the effects of human actions on the health of all organisms, an incomplete theory of human justice is proposed. Having (...) shown that the negative GHIs of our current generation cause unfair harm to future generations, I argue that each human being must be allocated a fair threshold of negative GHIs that should not be exceeded. By emphasising the need to consider all the GHIs of human actions, the theory of human justice developed here is highly relevant to evaluate human actions that might affect future generations, for example those related to climate change. (shrink)

Many scholars have argued that the distinction between the natural and the unnatural does not have any moral relevance, either because the distinction does not make sense or because, even if it does make sense, it does not make any moral sense. Before we can decide on the latter, we must therefore determine first whether a semantic distinction can be made. In this article, I argue that the distinction can be maintained. In spite of the fact that the categories of (...) the natural and the unnatural are blurred as no unnatural things are completely unnatural, I argue that we can meaningfully distinguish between different types of unnaturalness along the natural-unnatural spectrum. To my knowledge, this article is the first publication to distinguish between three types of unnaturalness. (shrink)

This article addresses the question whether Whiteheadians should be vegetarians in two ways. First, I question whether Whitehead should have been a vegetarian to be consistent, arguing that his omnivorous diet was inconsistent with his own philosophy. Second, I evaluate the works of three distinguished Whiteheadian philosophers on the ethics of vegetarianism. I argue that Charles Birch, John Cobb, and Jay McDaniel have prioritized animals justifiably over other organisms, yet that Birch and Cobb fail to do justice to the lives (...) of other animals, and that the account provided by McDaniel fails to provide a convincing argument for minimal moral vegetarianism. (shrink)

A number of philosophers have found inspiration in the writings of Alfred Whitehead to develop their ideas on environmental and animal ethics. I explore the writings of Charles Hartshorne and Daniel Dombrowski to address the question of whether Whiteheadians should be vegetarians. I conclude that there is a morally relevant distinction between plants and animals, based on the Whiteheadian view that animals have higher grades of experience, and that this distinction grounds a moral duty to adopt minimal moral veganism.