Bioethicists tend to focus on the individual as the relevant moral subject. Yet, in highly complex and socially differentiated healthcare systems a number of social groups, each committed to a common cause, are involved in medical decisions and sometimes even try to influence bioethical discourses according to their own agenda. We argue that the significance of these collective actors is unjustifiably neglected in bioethics. The growing influence of collective actors in the fields of biopolitics and bioethics leads us to pursue (...) the question as to how collective moral claims can be characterized and justified. We pay particular attention to elaborating the circumstances under which collective actors can claim ‘collective agency.’ Specifically, we develop four normative-practical criteria for collective agency in order to determine the conditions that must be given to reasonably speak of ‘collective autonomy’. For this purpose, we analyze patient organizations and families, which represent two quite different kinds of groups and can both be conceived as collective actors of high relevance for bioethical practice. Finally, we discuss some practical implications and explain why the existence of a shared practice of trust is of immediate normative relevance in this respect. (shrink)

Noam Chomsky and Frances Egan argue that David Marr’s computational theory of vision is not intentional, claiming that the formal scientific theory does not include description of visual content. They also argue that the theory is internalist in the sense of not describing things physically external to the perceiver. They argue that these claims hold for computational theories of vision in general. Beyond theories of vision, they argue that representational content does not figure as a topic within formal computational theories (...) in cognitive science. I demonstrate that Chomsky’s and Egan’s claims about Marr’s theory are false. Marr’s computational theory contains a mathematical theory of visual content, based on empirical psychophysical evidence. It also contains mathematical descriptions of distal physical surfaces and objects, and of their optic projection to the perceiver. Much computational research on vision contains these types of intentional and externalist components within the formal, mathematical, theories. Chomsky’s and Egan’s claims demonstrate inadequate study and understanding of Marr’s work and other research in this area. Computational theories of vision, by containing empirically based mathematical theories of visual content, to this extent present naturalizations of semantics. (shrink)

Because it is often argued that surrogacy should not be treated as contractual, the question arises in which terms this practice might then be couched. In this article, I argue that a phenomenology of surrogacy centering on the notion of trust provides a description that is illuminating from the moral point of view. My thesis is that surrogacy establishes a complex and extended reproductive unit––the “surrogacy triad” consisting of the surrogate mother, the child, and the intending parents––whose constituents are bound (...) together by mutual trustful commitments. Even though a trust-based approach does not provide an ultimate answer to whether surrogacy should be sanctioned or prohibited, it allows for at least some practical suggestions. In particular, I will argue that, under certain conditions, surrogacy is tenable within familial or other significant relationships, and I will stress the necessity of acknowledging the new relationships and moral commitments that result from this practice. (shrink)

We are witnessing increasing use of the Internet, particular social media, to criticize (perceived or actual) moral failings and misdemeanors. This phenomenon of so-called ‘online public shaming’ could provide a powerful tool for reinforcing valuable social norms. But it also threatens unwarranted and severe punishments meted out by online mobs. This paper analyses the dangers associated with the informal enforcement of norms, drawing on Locke, but also highlights its promise, drawing on recent discussions of social norms. We then consider two (...) crucial conditions that online public shaming must meet in order to be justifiable: proportionality and accountability. We argue that these requirements are in fact frequently violated, rendering most cases of online public shaming unjustified. While the use of online public shaming against others’ vices has some apparent virtues, it is currently rarely justified, given its own vices. (shrink)

How should we make choices when we know so little about our futures? L. A. Paul argues that we must view life decisions as choices to make discoveries about the nature of experience. Her account of transformative experience holds that part of the value of living authentically is to experience our lives and preferences in whatever ways they evolve.

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BackgroundThe bioethical debates concerning living donation and surrogacy revolve around similar ethical questions and moral concepts. Nevertheless, the ethical discourses in both fields grew largely isolated from each other.MethodsBased on a review of ethical, sociological and anthropological research this paper aims to link the ethical discourses on living kidney donation and surrogacy by providing a comparative analysis of the two practices’ relational dimension with regard to three aspects, i.e. the normative role of relational dynamics, social norms and gender roles, and (...) reciprocity. Based on this analysis, we derive conclusions for the framing of living organ donation and surrogacy in ethical theory and practice.ResultsFirst, our analysis emphasizes the relevance of acknowledging the complex relational implications of living kidney donation and surrogacy. Underestimating this relational dimension may not only lead to individual crises but endanger existing as well as newly emerging familial relationships. Second, we point out differences in the normative assessment of social norms and gender roles in the ethical debates about living kidney donation and surrogacy. In particular, we show how different evaluations of altruism affect the understanding of autonomy in both contexts. In addition, we sensitize for biased perceptions of gender roles. Finally, we argue that challenges resulting from unresolved reciprocity are an issue in living kidney donation and surrogacy independent of whether the exchange of body parts or bodily services is framed as a gift or commercial exchange. By pointing out the limits of financial compensation, we stress the relevance of non-material, relational rewards as potential remedy. (shrink)

The human body and its parts are widely perceived as matters beyond commercial usage. This belief is codified in several national and European documents. This so-called ‘no-property rule’ is held to be the default position across the countries of the European Union. However, a closer look at the most pertinent national and European documents, and also current practices in the field, reveals a gradual model of commercialisation of human tissue. In particular, we will argue that the ban on commercialisation of (...) body material is not as strict as it may appear at first sight, leaving room for the commercial practice of tissue procurement and transfer. We argue for more transparent information for patients and tissue donors, an intensified ethical debate on commercialisation practices, and a critical review of current normative principles. (shrink)

Reasons and reasoning were central to the work of Paul Grice, one of the most influential and admired philosophers of the late twentieth century. In the John Locke Lectures that Grice delivered in Oxford at the end of the 1970s, he set out his fundamental thoughts about these topics; Aspects of Reason is the long-awaited publication of those lectures. This immensely rich work, powerfully evocative of the mind of its author, will refresh and illuminate discussions in many areas of (...) contemporary philosophy. (shrink)

In modern moral philosophy, virtue ethics has developed into one of the major approaches to ethical inquiry. As it seems, however, it is faced with a kind of perplexity similar to the one that Elisabeth Anscombe has described in Modern moral philosophy with regard to ethics in general. For if we assume that Anscombe is right in claiming that virtue ethics ought to be grounded in a sound philosophy of psychology, modern virtue ethics seems to be baseless since it lacks (...) or even avoids reflections on the human soul. To overcome this difficulty, the paper explores the conceptual connections between virtue and soul in Aristotle's ethics. It claims that the human soul is the principle of virtue since reflections on the soul help us to define the nature of virtue, to understand the different kinds of virtues, and to answer the question why human beings need the virtues at all. (shrink)

This is a collection in translation of essays by Paul Ricoeur which presents a comprehensive view of his philosophical hermeneutics, its relation to the views of his predecessors in the tradition and its consequences for the social sciences. The volume has three parts. The studies in the first part examine the history of hermeneutics, its central themes and the outstanding issues it has to confront. In Part II, Ricoeur's own current, constructive position is developed. A concept of the text (...) is formulated as the implications of the theory are pursued into the domains of sociology, psychoanalysis and history. Many of the essays appear here in English for the first time; the editor's introduction brings out their background in Ricoeur's thought and the continuity of his concerns. The volume will be of great importance for those interested in hermeneutics and Ricoeur's contribution to it, and will demonstrate how much his approach offers to a number of disciplines. (shrink)

The ethical issues raised by cybersecurity practices and technologies are of critical importance. However, there is disagreement about what is the best ethical framework for understanding those issues. In this paper we seek to address this shortcoming through the introduction of a principlist ethical framework for cybersecurity that builds on existing work in adjacent fields of applied ethics, bioethics, and AI ethics. By redeploying the AI4People framework, we develop a domain-relevant specification of five ethical principles in cybersecurity: beneficence, non-maleficence, autonomy, (...) justice, and explicability. We then illustrate the advantages of this principlist framework by examining the ethical issues raised by four common cybersecurity contexts: penetration testing, distributed denial of service attacks (DDoS), ransomware, and system administration. These case analyses demonstrate the utility of this principlist framework as a basis for understanding cybersecurity ethics and for cultivating the ethical expertise and ethical sensitivity of cybersecurity professionals and other stakeholders. (shrink)

Critics of contemporary metaphysics argue that it attempts to do the hard work of science from the ease of the armchair. Physics, not metaphysics, tells us about the fundamental facts of the world, and empirical psychology is best placed to reveal the content of our concepts about the world. Exploring and understanding the world through metaphysical reflection is obsolete. In this paper, I will show why this critique of metaphysics fails, arguing that metaphysical methods used to make claims about the (...) world are similar to scientific methods used to make claims about the world, but that the subjects of metaphysics are not the subjects of science. Those who argue that metaphysics uses a problematic methodology to make claims about subjects better covered by natural science get the situation exactly the wrong way around: metaphysics has a distinctive subject matter, not a distinctive methodology. The questions metaphysicians address are different from those of scientists, but the methods employed to develop and select theories are similar. In the first section of the paper, I will describe the sort of subject matter that metaphysics tends to engage with. In the second section of the paper, I will show how metaphysical theories are classes of models and discuss the roles of experience, common sense and thought experiments in the construction and evaluation of such models. Finally, in the last section I will discuss the way these methodological points help us to understand the metaphysical project. Getting the right account of the metaphysical method allows us to better understand the relationship between science and metaphysics, to explain why doing metaphysics successfully involves having a range of different theories, to understand the role of thought experiments involving fictional worlds, and to situate metaphysical realism in a scientifically realist context. (shrink)

In this chapter a new problem about rule-following is outlined, one that is distinct both from Kripke’s and Wright’s versions of the problem. This new problem cannot be correctly responsed to, as Kripke’s can, by invoking Wright’s Intentional Account of rule-following. The upshot might be called, following Kant, an antinomy of pure reason: we both must — and cannot — make sense of someone’s following a rule. The chapter explores various ways out of this antinomy without here endorsing any of (...) them. (shrink)

Foreword William Schweiker Paul Tillich, one of the great Protestant theologians of the twentieth century, addresses in Morality and Beyond a basic problem ...

A Christian ethicist discusses such problems as organ transplants, caring for the terminally ill, and defining death.

Feyerabrend argues that intellectual progress relies on the creativity of the scientist, against the authority of science.

In this study of space and power and knowledge in France from the 1830s through the 1930s, Rabinow uses the tools of anthropology, philosophy, and cultural criticism to examine how social environment was perceived and described. Ranging from epidemiology to the layout of colonial cities, he shows how modernity was revealed in urban planning, architecture, health and welfare administration, and social legislation.

This edition includes a new introduction by Peter J. Gomes that reflects on the impact of this book in the years since it was written.

Eliminative materialism is the thesis that our common-sense conception of psychological phenomena constitutes a radically false theory, a theory so fundamentally defective that both the principles and the ontology of that theory will eventually be displaced, rather than smoothly reduced, by completed neuroscience. Our mutual understanding and even our introspection may then be reconstituted within the conceptual framework of completed neuroscience, a theory we may expect to be more powerful by far than the common-sense psychology it displaces, and more substantially (...) integrated within physical science generally. My purpose in this paper is to explore these projections, especially as they bear on (1) the principal elements of common-sense psychology: the propositional attitudes (beliefs, desires, etc.), and (2) the conception of rationality in which these elements figure. (shrink)

Paul Thom's book presents Kilwardby's science of logic as a body of demonstrative knowledge about inferences and their validity, about the semantics of non-modal and modal propositions, and about the logic of genus and species. This science is thoroughly intensional. It grounds the logic of inference on "that in virtue of which" the inference holds. It bases the truth conditions of propositions on relations between conceptual entities. It explains the logic of genus and species through the notion of essence. (...) Thom interprets this science as a formal logic of intensions with its own proof theory and semantics. This comprehensive reconstruction of Kilwardby's logic shows the medieval master to be one of the most interesting logicians of the thirteenth century. (shrink)

ZusammenfassungIn der ethischen Debatte um die Forschung mit Biobanken wird selten zwischen verschiedenen Biomaterialien differenziert. Vor diesem Hintergrund widmet sich die vorliegende qualitative Interviewstudie erstmals den praktischen Herausforderungen, die sich bei der Sammlung von postmortal gewonnenem menschlichem Gehirngewebe zu Forschungszwecken aus Sicht von in diese Praxis involvierten Experten in Deutschland stellen. Im Zentrum der ethischen Analyse stehen Herausforderungen der Spenderrekrutierung, der Kommunikation über eine Gehirnspende sowie der informierten Zustimmung. Unsere Ergebnisse relativieren zum einen die Annahme eines sogenannten Spendermangels, insofern insbesondere (...) Kliniker eine Gatekeeper-Rolle bei der Spendergewinnung innehaben. Deren Einstellungen sollten daher als ein die Praxis unmittelbar beeinflussender Faktor stärker berücksichtigt werden; zudem sollten im Wissen um bestehende moralische Vorbehalte Ansätze zur Verbesserung der professionellen Kommunikation entwickelt werden. Bezüglich der Regelung der Einwilligung in postmortale Forschungsspenden wurde in unserem Sample das Bemühen deutlich, den ethischen Vorrang der Organspende nicht zu gefährden und die Postmortalspende vor Assoziationen mit der Organspende zu bewahren. Zur Sicherung des Vertrauens in die Forschung sowie der Autonomie von Spendern befürworteten die Experten nicht nur die Anwendung einer Zustimmungsregelung, sondern auch ein den Familienangehörigen explizit eingeräumtes Recht, einer Gehirnspende selbst dann zu widersprechen, wenn der Verstorbene seine Zustimmung erteilt hat. Die Erfahrung zeigt, dass eine offene Kommunikation über das Erfordernis eines familiären Konsenses zu einer hohen Akzeptanz des Spenderwillens in der Praxis führt. Daher könnte ein solcher, auf den Dialog von Spender und Angehörigen zu Lebzeiten bauender Ansatz auch instruktiv für die Realisierung von Spenden im Kontext der Organspende sein. (shrink)

Human reproduction in the age of reprogenetics raises fundamental ethical and political questions. Critics of so-called liberal eugenics like Jürgen Habermas have sparked an ethical debate on whether selective genetic manipulation might undermine the natural basis of the moral self-conception and autonomy of future generations. Contrary to this perception, the authors of this article argue for a dialectic understanding of the moral challenges arising from human natality: Freedom and dependency, sociality and human embodiment, autonomy and relatedness likewise determine our human (...) existence as moral beings. As an answer to these challenges, the authors develop a dialectic understanding of parenthood in the age of reprogenetics, thereby transcending present debates of modern reproductive medicine. (shrink)

This essay reconsiders More's letter to Brixius. It uncovers early modern understandings of self-fashioning/ethos and epistolary conventions of the period, and with these contexts, it rereads More's self-presentation or ethos-development in the letter. The essay argues that More's ethos in the letter highlights an authentic facet of himself and, thereby, gives us a glimpse of the historical More who, in the Brixius moment, is angry, but not excessively or habitually, as has sometimes been claimed.

ZusammenfassungDie rechtliche Regelung der Fortpflanzungsmedizin ist dringend reformbedürftig. Das Embryonenschutzgesetz von 1990 erfasst die neuesten technischen Entwicklungen nicht, ist in manchen Bereichen unstimmig und lückenhaft, setzt die betroffenen Frauen, Paare und Kinder unnötigen gesundheitlichen Risiken aus, erschwert paradoxerweise die Durchsetzung von Kinderrechten und erzeugt Gerechtigkeitsprobleme und Rechtsunsicherheit für die betroffenen Paare und die behandelnden Ärztinnen und Ärzte.Das Embryonenschutzgesetz enthält zudem nur strafrechtliche Verbote. Diese erlauben keine angemessene Reaktion auf die medizinische Entwicklung und den gesellschaftlichen Wandel und werden der Komplexität der (...) Materie nicht gerecht.Diese Probleme müssen gelöst werden. Der Bundesgesetzgeber verfügt seit mehr als 20 Jahren über die Kompetenz zur Regelung der Fortpflanzungsmedizin. Er sollte in der kommenden Legislaturperiode ein umfassendes Fortpflanzungsmedizingesetz schaffen. (shrink)

De milieuproblematiek staat pas sinds kort op de agenda als een fenomeen dat de mensheid bedreigt. Toch blijkt het negentiende-eeuwse gedachtegoed van Karl Marx verrassende inzichten te bieden om deze actuele problemen te duiden. Marx laat zien dat het menselijk ingrijpen in de natuur leidt tot zelfvervreemding: de mens ondermijnt zijn bestaan als een wezen dat zelf deel uitmaakt van de natuur. Deze zelfvervreemding cumuleert in de kapitalistische samenleving. Marx lezend zien we dat de milieuproblematiek geen historische vergissing is, maar (...) fundamenteel samenhangt met de mens als redelijk wezen. Onze beheersingsrede heeft geleid tot de vervreemding van de natuur. Toch geeft dezelfde rede die de mens de vrijheid biedt zich boven het ecologische evenwicht te verheffen, hem de mogelijkheid zich te verzoenen met de natuur. Marx verwijst naar dit dubbele gezicht van de rede als hij stelt dat het 'rijk van de vrijheid' in de schoot van het kapitalisme wordt geboren. In dit boek onderzoekt Paul Cobben welke aanzetten de huidige samenleving biedt om vorm te geven aan de verzoening met de natuur. Paul Cobben is emeritus hoogleraar geschiedenis van de moderne filosofie aan Tilburg University. Momenteel is hij gastonderzoeker aan de Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam en redacteur van de serie 'Critical Studies in German Idealism'. Van zijn hand verscheen o.a. 'Value in Capitalist Society. Rethinking Marx's Criticism of Capitalism' (2015)."-- Publisher information. (shrink)

"First published in this translation 1955; second edition (revised) 1974; reprinted with additional revisions 1987; reissued with new Further Reading 2003; reissued with new introduction 2007"--T.p. verso.

I defend a one category ontology: an ontology that denies that we need more than one fundamental category to support the ontological structure of the world. Categorical fundamentality is understood in terms of the metaphysically prior, as that in which everything else in the world consists. One category ontologies are deeply appealing, because their ontological simplicity gives them an unmatched elegance and spareness. I’m a fan of a one category ontology that collapses the distinction between particular and property, replacing it (...) with a single fundamental category of intrinsic characters or qualities. We may describe the qualities as qualitative charactersor as modes, perhaps on the model of Aristotelian qualitative (nonsubstantial) kinds, and I will use the term “properties” interchangeably with “qualities”. The qualities are repeatable and reasonably sparse, although, as I discuss in section 2.6, there are empirical reasons that may suggest, depending on one’s preferred fundamental physical theory, that they include irreducibly intensive qualities. There are no uninstantiated qualities. I also assume that the fundamental qualitative natures are intrinsic, although physics may ultimately suggest that some of them are extrinsic. On my view, matter, concrete objects, abstract objects, and perhaps even spacetime are constructed from mereological fusions of qualities, so the world is simply a vast mixture of qualities, including polyadic properties (i.e., relations). This means that everything there is, including concrete objects like persons or stars, is a quality, a qualitative fusion, or a portion of the extended qualitative fusion that is the worldwhole. I call my view mereological bundle theory. (shrink)

I argue for a property mereology and for mereological bundle theory. I then apply this theory to the one over many problem (universals) and puzzles concerning persistence and material constitution.