Compassion is a prosocial motivation that is critical to the development and survival of the human species. Cultivating compassion involves developing deep wisdom, insight, and understanding into the nature and causes of human suffering; and wisdom and commitment to take positive action to alleviate suffering. This perspective piece discusses how compassion relates to the context of modern technology, which has developed at a rapid pace in recent decades. While advances in digital technology build on humankind’s vast capacity to develop practical (...) tools that promise to enrich our lives and improve our social connections, in reality the effects are often far from benign. The motives underlying the development of many contemporary digital platforms seem rooted in competitiveness and capitalism; while modern social media and online platforms are having a profound and pervasive impact on the mental health and wellbeing of humans around the globe. Nonetheless, digital technology holds considerable potential to promote compassionate insight, wisdom, and prosocial behavior. We reflect on the current state of technology within human society and examine the notion of compassionate technologies; discuss how contemporary paradigm shifts such as the inclusive design movement may be harnessed to build tools and platforms that promote collective good and increase prosocial behavior; and highlight examples of initiatives that are harnessing modern technology to advance democracy, collective knowledge, and personal freedoms and agency. (shrink)

European Enlightenment thinkers like Emer de Vattel in his epic work The Laws of Nations argued that engaging in warfare should comply, as much as possible, with humane rules in the treatment of both combatants and noncombatants. Encapsulated by the phrase jus in bello, or justice in warfare, the question remains whether this idealist doctrine had application in military actions conducted during the Revolutionary War fought over the issue of American independence. This essay concludes that in such frontier regions as (...) the Mohawk Valley of New York, the doctrine of jus in bello had virtually no impact in restraining wartime cruelties. What actually occurred in such areas was vicious partisan warfare, or a contagion of violence characterized by brutal retribution and retaliation among combatants, along with merciless actions directed against civilian noncombatants. The Revolutionary War, at least in regions like frontier New York where partisan fighting predominated, had more in common wit.. (shrink)

Species evolve, very slowly, through selection of genes which give rise to phenotypes well adapted to their environments. The cultures, including the languages, of human communities evolve, much faster, maintaining at least a minimum level of adaptedness to the external, non- cultural environment. In the phylogenetic evolution of species, the transmission of information across generations is via copying of molecules, and innovation is by mutation and sexual recombination. In cultural evolution, the transmission of information across generations is by learning, and (...) innovation is by sporadic invention or borrowing from other cultures. This much is the foundational bedrock of evolutionary theory. But things get more complicated; there can be gene-culture co-evolution. Prior to the rise of culture, the physical environment is the only force shaping biological evolution from outside the organism, and cultures themselves are clearly constrained by the evolved biological characteristics of their members. But cultures become part of the external environment, and influence the course of biological evolution. For example, altruistic cultures with developed medical knowledge reduce the cost to the individual of carrying genes disposing to certain pathologies (such as diabetes); and such genes become more widespread in the populations maintaining such cultures. Assortative mating can affect biological evolution, and particular cultures may influence the factors which are sorted for in mating. (For a careful discussion of the effects of cultural evolution on natural selection, see Cavalli-Sforza and Bodmer, 1971:774- 804). This paper examines mechanisms involved in the co-evolution of a biological trait, the critical period for language acquisition, and a property of human cultures, the size of their languages. A gene/culture interaction will be shown that can be described as a kind of symbiosis, but perhaps more aptly as an `arms race'. In this introduction, we will sketch the basic mechanics of the interaction in very broad terms; the rest of the paper will explain and justify the details. The implications of our model for second language acquisition are given toward the end of the paper. (shrink)

This article discusses the representation of AIDS in Guibert's posthumously published novel Le Paradis. The novel is situated in relation to Guibert's better known previous AIDS writings. The article proposes that Guibert's AIDS works fall in to three related categories: writings about other peoples' AIDS; autobiographical writings about AIDS, and, in the third, terminal stage in which Le Paradis fits, writing AIDS. As such the article suggests that Le Paradis manages to reflect and communicate some of the trauma of living (...) with AIDS by specifically trying not to write about it. The article raises issues related to constructions of sexualized and AIDS identities in fiction, and presents the novel as a form which represents a loss of self. The novel, it is argued, becomes a self-mourning for a healthy past which is memorialized in a fictional present, itself always-already haunted by the nostalgia for a lost future. (shrink)

In this paper we offer a new argument for the existence of God. We contend that the laws of logic are metaphysically dependent on the existence of God, understood as a necessarily existent, personal, spiritual being; thus anyone who grants that there are laws of logic should also accept that there is a God. We argue that if our most natural intuitions about them are correct, and if they are to play the role in our intellectual activities that we take (...) them to play, then the laws of logic are best construed as necessarily existent thoughts -- more specifically, as divine thoughts about divine thoughts. We conclude by highlighting some implications for both theistic arguments and antitheistic arguments. (shrink)

Taber and Lodge offer a powerful case for the prevalence of directional reasoning that aims not at truth, but at the vindication of prior opinions. Taber and Lodge's results have far-reaching implications for empirical scholarship and normative theory; indeed, the very citizens often seen as performing “best” on tests of political knowledge, sophistication, and ideological constraint appear to be the ones who are the most susceptible to directional reasoning. However, Taber and Lodge's study, while internally beyond reproach, may substantially overstate (...) the presence of motivated reasoning in political settings. That said, focusing on the accuracy motivation has the potential to bring together two models of opinion formation that many treat as competitors, and to offer a basis for assessing citizen competence. (shrink)

Taber and Lodge offer a powerful case for the prevalence of directional reasoning that aims not at truth, but at the vindication of prior opinions. Taber and Lodge's results have far-reaching implications for empirical scholarship and normative theory; indeed, the very citizens often seen as performing “best” on tests of political knowledge, sophistication, and ideological constraint appear to be the ones who are the most susceptible to directional reasoning. However, Taber and Lodge's study, while internally beyond reproach, may substantially overstate (...) the presence of motivated reasoning in political settings. That said, focusing on the accuracy motivation has the potential to bring together two models of opinion formation that many treat as competitors, and to offer a basis for assessing citizen competence. (shrink)

In Paradox in Christian Theology I argued that the Christian doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation are paradoxical—that is, they appear to involve implicit contradictions—yet Christians can still be rational in affirming and believing those doctrines. Dale Tuggy has characterized my theory of theological paradox as a form of “positive mysterianism” and argues that the theory “faces steep epistemic problems, and is at best a temporarily reasonable but ultimately unsustainable stance.” After summarizing my proposed model for the rational affirmation (...) of theological paradox and considering whether my proposal is indeed a form of “positive mysterianism” as Tuggy defines the term, I address the two main criticisms raised in Tuggy’s paper: first, that the doctrine of divine incomprehensibility cannot bear the weight required by my defense of paradox; and second, that my proposed model is afflicted with epistemic instability. I conclude that Tuggy has failed to show that a mysterian stance with respect to paradoxical Christian doctrines is in principle unreasonable, unnatural, or unsustainable. (shrink)

Against the oft-repeated claim that Heideggerian authenticity calls for a resoluteness that is either indifferent or inimical to normative rationality, Steven Crowell has recently argued that the phenomenon of conscience in _Sein und Zeit_ is specifically intended to ground normative rationality in the existential ontological account of Dasein so that Heidegger puts forward not a rejection of the life of reason but a more fundamental account of its condition of possibility in terms of self-responsibility. In what follows, I wish to (...) take up the issue of an existential grounding of rational life and its implications for the phenomenological reduction in relation to the work of Husserl by showing that he too is concerned with a self-responsible contextualizing of the life of reason even at the level of individual human existence. In this way, Husserl, like Heidegger, can be read as framing the phenomenological reduction in terms of the subject's concern for self-justification. However, this 'framing' cannot be seen as a motivation to reduction but only as an 'after-the-fact' explanation of its import. But I will suggest, in conclusion, that the problem of the motivation to reduction is perhaps as much of a problem for Heidegger as it is for Husserl. (shrink)

It is said there are only two things in life that are certain: death and taxes … maybe only taxes.

Girard discusses "homosexuality" on three occasions in his oeuvre. Late in the first chapter of Deceit, Desire, & the Novel he discusses the relationship between Veltchaninov and Troussotsky, characters in Dostoyevsky's The Eternal Husband. Then in Part III of Things Hidden since the Foundation of the World the sections entitled "Homosexuality" and "Mimetic Latency and Rivalry" are dedicated to the subject. Indeed, in the latter of these Girard reproduces his discussion of Veltchaninov and Troussotsky from the earlier book. Finally, he (...) touches on the matter in Chapter 4 of A Theater of Envy: William Shakespeare, dedicated to... (shrink)

Highly creative and interactive, this apologetics resource helps readers identify and evaluate 21 different worldviews through engaging yes-or-no questions and easy-to-understand descriptions. Appendices include answers to common questions and suggestions for further reading.

Think theory is thoroughly removed from explaining international crises such as Bosnia, Rwanda, and Korea? Think again! James Rosenau and Mary Durfee have teamed up to show how the same events take on different coloration depending on the theory used to explain them. In order to better understand world politics, the authors maintain, theory does make a difference. Thinking Theory Thoroughly is a primer for all kinds of readers who want to begin theorizing about international relations (IR). In this (...) second edition, realism (the dominant theoretical perspective in IR), postinternationalism (Rosenau’s famed turbulence paradigm), and liberalism are treated together in a chapter that compares them along various analytic dimensions, which makes the book even more useful.In this new edition, the order and content of case chapters have been changed to better reflect the ways theory can be used to organize empirical material. The chapter on crises, which is now at the beginning, shows how systemic theories might cope with problems and evidence of a more local and temporally constrained nature. A chapter on the U.N. illustrates how systemic theories can cope with institutions, and the last chapter, on Antarctica, delineates how systemic theories can be used to generate hypotheses that then demand different kinds of evidence. (shrink)

Here I propose to undertake a brief survey of the statements of the argument given by these proponents, formulating and qualifying as I go what seems to me a sound version of it, capable of withstanding both Ayer's criticism and others that I have developed. There must be additional ways in which the same or similar points can be expressed. Another review of Kant, Paton, Taylor, and Kenner would no doubt produce a somewhat different result. All that is claimed here (...) is that the argument advanced in this paper is sound and that it was suggested by certain statements of theirs. (shrink)

Rosenau writes that the history of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries is the story of convergence around political entities in order to preserve individual values in the context of collective needs and wants; but today the process of community building has been reversed.

Donation after circulatory determination of death (DCDD) is an accepted practice in the United States, but heart procurement under these circumstances has been debated. Although the practice is experiencing a resurgence due to the recently completed trials using ex vivo perfusion systems, interest in thoracoabdominal normothermic regional perfusion (TA-NRP), wherein the organs are reanimated in situ prior to procurement, has raised many ethical questions. We outline practical, ethical, and equity considerations to ensure transplant programs make well-informed decisions about TA-NRP. We (...) present a multidisciplinary analysis of the relevant ethical issues arising from DCDD-NRP heart procurement, including application of the Dead Donor Rule and the Uniform Definition of Death Act, and provide recommendations to facilitate ethical analysis and input from all interested parties. We also recommend informed consent, as distinct from typical “authorization,” for cadaveric organ donation using TA-NRP. (shrink)

Subsequent to the end of the Cold War, analysts groped for an understanding of the overall structures of world politics that marked the emergence of a new epoch. As a result, the concept of empire became a major preoccupation, with the economic and military power of the United States considered sufficient for regarding it as an empire. Due to the proliferation of new microelectronic technologies and for a variety of other specified reasons, however, the constraints inherent in the new epoch (...) make it seem highly unlikely that the U.S. or any other country can ever achieve the status of an empire. In effect, the substantial shrinkage of time and distance in the current period has led to the replacement of the age of the nation-state that originated with the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648 with the age of the networked individual. It is an age that has developed on a global scale and that has brought an end to the history of empires. (shrink)