Robot enthusiasts envision robots will become a “race unto themselves” as they cohabit with the humankind one day. Profound questions arise surrounding one of the major areas of research in the contemporary world—that concerning artificial intelligence. Fascination and anxiety that androids impose upon us hinges on how we come to conceive of the “Cultural Other.” Applying the notion of the “other” in multicultural research process, we will explore how the “Other” has been used to illustrate values and theories about (...) robots, as a mirror for the self. In this paper, we focus on the social, cultural, and religious implications of humans’ attitudes toward relationships between humans with robots. Six major views on humanoid robots are proposed: (1) robots as the “Frightening Other,” (2) robots as the “Subhuman Other,” (3) robots as the “Human Substitute,” (4) robots as the “Sentient Other,” (5) robots as the “Divine Other,” and (6) robots as the “Co-evolutionary Path to Immortality.” The likely and preferable scenario is the last one, which is compatible with an optimistic posthuman world in our evolutionary future. We imagine whether humans will meet the challenge of loving all living and non-living beings (including mechanical entities) might be the key to the co-evolution of both species and the ultimate happiness. (shrink)

As the artificial intelligence of computers grows ever-more sophisticated and continues to surpass the capacities of human minds in many ways, people are forced to question alleged ontological categories that separate humans from machines. As we are entering the world which is populated by non-enhanced and enhanced humans, cyborgs, robots, androids, avatars, and clones among them, the desire for evolutionary mastery of the natural world has taken on the two main directions: merging with machines in disembodied forms or embodied (...) forms. As a path to breaking past the discontinuity between humans and machines and enter into a world beyond the “fourth” discontinuity, machines are viewed as an evolutionary step toward the “perfection” or “immortality” of humans. However, this popular, instrumental views of machines, stemming from the existential death anxiety and the hope for transcending mortality, reveals the karmic dilemma of desiring or grasping something. We shall discuss the possibility that machines can present, ultimately, a revolutionary step rather than an evolutionary step toward understanding “who we are.” The path toward a continuity with machines lies not in our desire for merging with the robots, but in recognizing the arbitrary nature of all such identity categories. This radical understanding of the self-identity can be seen as a facet of enlightened experience. (shrink)

Artificial intelligence and robots may progressively take a more and more prominent place in our daily environment. Interestingly, in the study of how humans perceive these artificial entities, science has mainly taken an anthropocentric perspective (i.e., how distant from humans are these agents). Considering people’s fears and expectations from robots and artificial intelligence, they tend to be simultaneously afraid and allured to them, much as they would be to the conceptualisations related to the divine entities (e.g., gods). In (...) two experiments, we investigated the proximity of representation between artificial entities (i.e., artificial intelligence and robots), divine entities and natural entities (i.e., humans and other animals) at both an explicit (Study 1) and an implicit level (Study 2). In the first study, participants evaluated these entities explicitly on positive and negative attitudes. Hierarchical clustering analysis showed that participants’ representation of artificial intelligence, robots and divine entities were similar, while the representation of humans tended to be associated with that of animals. In the second study, participants carried out a word/non-word decision task including religious semantic-related words and neutral words after the presentation of a masked prime referring to divine entities, artificial entities and natural entities (or a control prime). Results showed that after divine and artificial entity primes, participants were faster to identify religious words as words compared to neutral words arguing for a semantic activation. We conclude that people make sense of the new entities by relying on already familiar entities and in the case of artificial intelligence and robots, people appear to draw parallels to divine entities. (shrink)

Genesis 2:4–25, the story of the creation of man and woman, has received great attention in modern theology. The text indeed contains the most fundamental teaching of the Bible on the relation between man and woman, on sexuality, and on marriage. In this article, however, I attempt to highlight some of the theoretical/philosophical potential of the text. While I accept the main theological teaching of Genesis 2 about the equality of the sexes, I argue that the text goes beyond the (...) mere presentation of this theological doctrine, and provides a structure that allows for a dynamic interplay between the sexes. I contend, furthermore, that this structure and the ensuing dynamics can be interpreted as a subtle treatment of the issue of the same and the other. Finally, I argue that in this way the biblical text can provide a description of the experience of love and an account of human creativity. In other words, it accounts for the possibility of realizing our divine likeness, the divinity of the human. (shrink)

Honoring the divine is central to Maimonides' ethical and religious phenomenology. It connotes the recognition of radical divine incommensurability and points to the hard limits of human ability to know God. Yet it also signals the importance of philosophical speculation within those limits, indicating the intellectual and ethical telos of human life. For Maimonides, to honor or show kavod to God is closely related to the meaning of the divine glory (also known as kavod ) that Moses demands to see (...) in Exodus 33. Moses' demand to see the kavod is usually interpreted as a quest for some visible sign of God's presence or, at least, for a created light whose existence could testify to the authenticity of Moses' prophecy. Maimonides is alone among early interpreters in treating Exodus 33 as a parable of the philosophical quest to apprehend divine uniqueness, which leads first to negative theology and then to imitatio Dei . This article argues that the theme of divine kavod links Maimonides' philosophical, literary, and even medical concerns with his practical religious teaching, and connects the Guide of the Perplexed with his other legal and interpretive works. Maimonides' consistent fascination with Exodus 33 helps to organize his reflections on human perfection, ethics, and the relationship between idolatry and everyday religious language, distinguishing him from dominant trends in both Judaeo-Arabic and later kabbalistic thought. (shrink)

Ray Kurzweil and others have posited that the confluence of nanotechnology, artificial intelligence, robotics, and genetic engineering will soon produce posthuman beings that will far surpass us in power and intelligence. Just as black holes constitute a ldquo;singularityrdquo; from which no information can escape, posthumans will constitute a ldquo;singularity:rdquo; whose aims and capacities lie beyond our ken. I argue that technological posthumanists, whether wittingly or unwittingly, draw upon the long-standing Christian discourse of ldquo;theosis,rdquo; according to which humans are capable of (...) being God or god-like. From St. Paul and Luther to Hegel and Kurzweil, the idea of human self-deification plays a prominent role. Hegel in particular emphasizes that God becomes wholly actualized only in the process by which humanity achieves absolute consciousness. Kurzweil agrees that God becomes fully actual only through historical processes that illuminate and thus transform the entire universe. The difference is that for Kurzweil and many other posthumanists, our offspringmdash;the posthumansmdash;will carry out this extraordinary process. What will happen to Home sapiens in the meantime is a daunting question. (shrink)

Ray Kurzweil and others have posited that the confluence of nanotechnology, artificial intelligence, robotics, and genetic engineering will soon produce posthuman beings that will far surpass us in power and intelligence. Just as black holes constitute a ldquo;singularityrdquo; from which no information can escape, posthumans will constitute a ldquo;singularity:rdquo; whose aims and capacities lie beyond our ken. I argue that technological posthumanists, whether wittingly or unwittingly, draw upon the long-standing Christian discourse of ldquo;theosis,rdquo; according to which humans are capable of (...) being God or god-like. From St. Paul and Luther to Hegel and Kurzweil, the idea of human self-deification plays a prominent role. Hegel in particular emphasizes that God becomes wholly actualized only in the process by which humanity achieves absolute consciousness. Kurzweil agrees that God becomes fully actual only through historical processes that illuminate and thus transform the entire universe. The difference is that for Kurzweil and many other posthumanists, our offspringmdash;the posthumansmdash;will carry out this extraordinary process. What will happen to Home sapiens in the meantime is a daunting question.br /br /. (shrink)

Robots are increasingly envisaged as our future cohabitants. However, while considerable progress has been made in recent years in terms of their technological realization, the ability of robots to inter-act with humans in an intuitive and social way is still quite limited. An important challenge for social robotics is to determine how to design robots that can perceive the user’s needs, feelings, and intentions, and adapt to users over a broad range of cognitive abilities. It is conceivable (...) that if robots were able to adequately demonstrate this, humans would eventually accept them as social companions. We argue that the best way to achieve this is using a systematic experimental approach based on behavioral and physiological neuroscience methods such as motion/eye tracking, electroencephalography (EEG), or functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) embedded in interactive human-robot paradigms. This approach requires understanding how humans interact with each other, how they perform tasks together and how they develop feelings of social connection over time, and using these insights to formulate design principles that make social robots attuned to the workings of the human brain. In this review, we put forward the argument that the likelihood of artificial agents being perceived as social companions can be increased by designing them in a way that they are perceived as intentional agents that activate areas in the human brain involved in social-cognitive processing. We first review literature related to social-cognitive mechanisms involved in human-human interactions, and high-light the importance of perceiving others as intentional agents to activate these brain areas. We then discuss how attribution of intentionality can positively affect human-robot interaction by (a) fostering feelings of social connection, empathy and prosociality, and by (b) enhancing performance on joint human-robot tasks. Lastly, we describe circumstances under which attribution of intentionality to robot agents might be disadvantageous, and discuss challenges associated with designing social robots that are inspired by neuroscientific principles. (shrink)

Theists in general and Christians in particular have good grounds for affirming divine action in relation to twenty-first-century science. Although humans cannot perceive with their five senses the causation—both divine and creaturely—at work in our world, they have reasons to believe God acts as an efficient, but never sufficient, cause in creation. The essential kenosis option I offer overcomes liabilities in other kenosis proposals, while accounting for a God who acts personally, consistently, persuasively, and yet in diversely efficacious ways. We (...) can reasonably infer that the love, beauty, and truth expressed in creation derive from divine and creaturely causation. (shrink)

Robots today serve in many roles, from entertainer to educator to executioner. As robotics technology advances, ethical concerns become more pressing: Should robots be programmed to follow a code of ethics, if this is even possible? Are there risks in forming emotional bonds with robots? How might society--and ethics--change with robotics? This volume is the first book to bring together prominent scholars and experts from both science and the humanities to explore these and other questions in this (...) emerging field. Starting with an overview of the issues and relevant ethical theories, the topics flow naturally from the possibility of programming robot ethics to the ethical use of military robots in war to legal and policy questions, including liability and privacy concerns. The contributors then turn to human-robot emotional relationships, examining the ethical implications of robots as sexual partners, caregivers, and servants. Finally, they explore the possibility that robots, whether biological-computational hybrids or pure machines, should be given rights or moral consideration. Ethics is often slow to catch up with technological developments. This authoritative and accessible volume fills a gap in both scholarly literature and policy discussion, offering an impressive collection of expert analyses of the most crucial topics in this increasingly important field. (shrink)

The concept of meaningful work has recently received increased attention in philosophy and other disciplines. However, the impact of the increasing robotization of the workplace on meaningful work has received very little attention so far. Doing work that is meaningful leads to higher job satisfaction and increased worker well-being, and some argue for a right to access to meaningful work. In this paper, we therefore address the impact of robotization on meaningful work. We do so by identifying five key aspects (...) of meaningful work: pursuing a purpose, social relationships, exercising skills and self-development, self-esteem and recognition, and autonomy. For each aspect, we analyze how the introduction of robots into the workplace may diminish or enhance the meaningfulness of work. We also identify a few ethical issues that emerge from our analysis. We conclude that robotization of the workplace can have both significant negative and positive effects on meaningful work. Our findings about ways in which robotization of the workplace can be a threat or opportunity for meaningful work can serve as the basis for ethical arguments for how to—and how not to—implement robots into workplaces. (shrink)

Social robots serve people as tutors, caretakers, receptionists, companions, and other social agents. People know that the robots are mechanical artifacts, yet they interact with them as if they were actual agents. How is this possible? The proposal here is that people construe social robots not as social agents per se, but as depictions of social agents. They interpret them much as they interpret ventriloquist dummies, hand puppets, virtual assistants, and other interactive depictions of people and animals. (...) Depictions as a class consist of three physical scenes with part-by-part mappings between them: (a) a base scene (the raw physical artifact), (b) the depiction proper (the artifact construed as a depiction), and (c) the scene depicted (the scene people are to imagine). With social robots, evidence shows people form the same three scenes plus mappings: They perceive the raw machinery of a robot, construe it as a depiction of a character, and, using the depiction as a guide, engage in the pretense that they are interacting with the character depicted. With social robots, people also recognize three classes of agents – the characters depicted, the intended recipients of the depictions (those who view or interact with the robots), and the authorities responsible for the robots (the designers, makers, and owners). Construing social robots as depictions, we argue, accounts for many phenomena not covered by alternative models. (shrink)

How can we make sense of the idea of ‘personal’ or ‘social’ relations with robots? Starting from a social and phenomenological approach to human–robot relations, this paper explores how we can better understand and evaluate these relations by attending to the ways our conscious experience of the robot and the human–robot relation is mediated by language. It is argued that our talk about and to robots is not a mere representation of an objective robotic or social-interactive reality, but (...) rather interprets and co-shapes our relation to these artificial quasi-others. Our use of language also changes as a result of our experiences and practices. This happens when people start talking to robots. In addition, this paper responds to the ethical objection that talking to and with robots is both unreal and deceptive. It is concluded that in order to give meaning to human–robot relations, to arrive at a more balanced ethical judgment, and to reflect on our current form of life, we should complement existing objective-scientific methodologies of social robotics and interaction studies with interpretations of the words, conversations, and stories in and about human–robot relations. (shrink)

This is Warrior Yoga, New York Times bestselling author and retired Navy SEAL Commander Mark Divine's latest contribution to mental and physical achievement exercises started with 8 Weeks to SEALFIT and Unbeatable Mind. This is not your average yoga book. Using Coach Divine's signature integrated training curriculum, Warrior Yoga is an intense physical workout designed for both the nation's elite special ops soldiers, and the regular athlete with the heart and mind of a warrior. His tried and true warrior sequences (...) are designed to be simple and flexible. These short, powerful drills can be done from home or on the road to enhance existing workout regimens and cultivate new ones. The sequences are targeted and focused to adapt to any athlete's physical and mental capabilities including those rehabilitating from injuries and suffering from PTSD. Mark's decades of experience with amateur and professional athletes, active and aspiring Navy SEALS, and wounded warriors uniquely qualify him as an expert motivator and teacher. To be a SEALFITTM Yoga Warrior requires a harmonious balance between mental and physical toughness, strength, and agility. Mark's short digestible exercises will help any athlete hone their fitness routine to reach their fullest potential, combining the physical, emotional and spiritual aspects of an unbeatable mind and body program. (shrink)

This essay addresses how the idea of wilderness is a point of conversation between environmental philosophy and environmental theology. This topic is approached through a conversation with the environmental philosophy of Martin Drenthen. First, I discuss the respective aims of environmental philosophy and environmental theology. Second, I summarise the work of Drenthen on wilderness and otherness. Third, I compare this vision of environmental philosophy and a theological concept of Divine Otherness. Finally I sketch how this exploration is part of a (...) theological account of wilderness. Taking seriously Drenthen's view that wilderness is the otherness at the intersection of nature and culture, wilderness can be understood as indicative of Divine Otherness. Thus wilderness is a unique place where theological and philosophical thinking traverse and challenge each other. (shrink)

Although social robots are achieving increasing prominence as companions and carers, their status as partners in an interactive relationship with humans remains unclear. The present paper explores this issue, first, by considering why social robots cannot truly qualify as “Thous”, that is, as surrogate human partners, as they are often assumed to be, and then by briefly considering why it will not do to construe them as mere machines, slaves, or pets, as others have contended. Having concluded that (...) none of these familiar designations does justice to social robots’ still evolving and yet-to-be-defined status, I go on to consider whether engaging in a “relational turn” which prioritises the relationship over the entities in relation, can provide a more satisfactory alternative. In defending this stance, Damiano and Dumouchel contend that in addition to foregrounding the possibility that social robots constitute new types of artificial companions which we can find “companionable in different ways”, the relational turn has the added advantage of providing a more expansive and productive ethical framework for future research and development in this domain. But on balance, it is far from clear that this approach can circumvent the so-called “dummy-human” problem, the contention that social robots are little more than sophisticated toys with the potential to deceive their users about the prospects for genuine partnership and bonding. Accordingly, I conclude that while Damiano and Dumouchel’s shift in “target phenomenology” brings to the fore facets of the interaction that may be difficult to infer by focussing on the relata alone, it is ultimately too “thin” to qualify as a template for robust human-robotic interaction of the sort that could qualify as a genuine partnership. Hence, while their relational turn has its merits in alerting us to the novel possibilities and challenges afforded by this ever-evolving technology and to the limitations of existing frameworks, it is contended that in itself it cannot provide an adequate template for conceptualising what a genuine human–robot partnership might entail. Instead, we need a more expansive approach that can do greater justice to the complexities of human-robotic interaction in its continuities as well as differences from more familiar human prototypes. (shrink)

I demonstrate that the pre-Critical Kant is essentialist and intellectualist about the relational properties of substances. That is to say, God can choose whether or not to create a substance, and whether or not to connect this substance with other substances, so as to create a world: but God cannot choose what the nature of the relational properties is, once the substance is created and connected. The divine will is constrained by the essences of substances. Nonetheless, Kant considers that essences (...) depend upon God, in that they depend upon the divine intellect. I conclude by gesturing towards some possible implications of this interpretation, when considering the role that might be played by God – both historically and conceptually – in relation to the notion of ‘laws of nature’, and when understanding Kant's transcendental idealism and his Critical conception of freedom. (shrink)

Children ranging from 3 to 5 years were introduced to two anthropomorphic robots that provided them with information about unfamiliar animals. Children treated the robots as interlocutors. They supplied information to the robots and retained what the robots told them. Children also treated the robots as informants from whom they could seek information. Consistent with studies of children's early sensitivity to an interlocutor's non-verbal signals, children were especially attentive and receptive to whichever robot displayed the (...) greater non-verbal contingency. Such selective information seeking is consistent with recent findings showing that although young children learn from others, they are selective with respect to the informants that they question or endorse. (shrink)

In a series of publications spanning over two decades, William Hasker has argued both that (1) human beings have souls and (2) these souls are not directly created by God but instead are produced by (or “emergent from”) a physical process of some sort or other. By contrast, an alternative view of the human person, endorsed by the contemporary Catholic Church, maintains that (1) human beings have souls but that (2*) each human soul is directly created by God rather than (...) produced by any kind of physical process. Hasker argues that given what we know from evolutionary biology, (2*) is a much less plausible position for believers in souls to take than (2) is. If Hasker is right, then there is a serious tension between the Church’s teaching about the human person and evolutionary biology. In this article, I challenge Hasker’s reasoning. I argue that those who hold the Catholic view that each human soul is directly created by God face no more difficulty reconciling their view with evolutionary biology than those who maintain, as Hasker does, that human souls are instead produced by some kind of physical process. (shrink)

The author’s purpose is to understand the role divine ideas play as causal principles in Aquinas’s philosophy. His contention is that, although Thomas’s doctrine of ideas is perhaps not the key to an understanding of his metaphysics, it is certainly “ a key to such an understanding” .The book is divided into six chapters. The first chapter seeks to provide a general definition of divine ideas according to Aquinas. Divine ideas are exemplar causes in the likeness of which God produces (...) creatures. Ideas in the strict sense belong to God’s practical or actually practical knowledge. The causality exercised by exemplars is that of formal causality, but because they are productive of things, they entail efficient and final causality, as well. In chapter 2, Doolan examines Thomas’s arguments in favor of the existence of divine ideas. Chapter 3 deals with the question of the multiplicity of divine ideas. Doolan first establishes, against Gilson and others, that Aquinas did indeed hold that there was a multiplicity of divine ideas. He then shows how Aquinas was able to reconcile the diversity of ideas with God’s simplicity. The gist of the solution involves viewing ideas as nonbeings relative to God, who is, of course, ipsum esse. Now the only way non-beings can enter into God is in. (shrink)

Paradiso 2’s sustained direct address warns readers unprepared for its complexities to “turn back to see your shores again…for perhaps losing me, you would be lost,” but then offers the “other few” who crave “the bread of angels” the promise of a marvel that would rival the deeds of the mythological hero Jason. I will argue that, by appearing to impose this choice on its readers, this direct address in fact activates the craving for the bread of angels (for who, (...) by obeying the interpretive imperative to make such a decision, would not also be one who thereby does choose to pursue the bread that is promised in return for this obedience?). In other words, the very act of interpreting the representation of readers as divided into those who are capable of allegorical interpretation and those who are not constructs and activates the will of a single readership for the Divine Comedy and, consequently, challenges us to provide an articulation of what it means even to read or to misread the Divine Comedy. (shrink)

Toba Spitzer's God Is Here is a transformative exploration of the idea of God, offering new paths to experiencing the realm of the sacred. Most of us are hungry for a system of meaning to make sense of our lives, yet traditional religion too often leaves those seeking spiritual sustenance unsatisfied. Rabbi Toba Spitzer understands this problem firsthand, and knows that too often it is traditional ideas of the deity-he's too big, too impersonal, and too unbelievable-that get in the way. (...) In God Is Here, Spitzer argues that whether we believe in God or fervently disbelieve, what we are actually disagreeing about is not God at all, but a metaphor of a Big Powerful Person that limits our understanding and our spiritual lives. Going back to the earliest sources for Judaism as well as Christianity, Spitzer discovers in the Hebrew Bible a rich and varied palette of metaphors for the divine-including Water, Voice, Fire, Rock, Cloud, and even the process of Becoming. She addresses how we can access these ancient metaphors, as well as those drawn from rabbinic tradition and modern science, to experience holiness in our daily lives and to guide us in challenging times. In the section on water, for instance, she looks at the myriad ways water flows through the Biblical stories of the Israelites and emerges as a powerful metaphor for the divine in the Prophets and Psalms. She invites us to explore what it might mean to "drink from God," or to experience godly justice as something that "rains down" and "flows like a river." Each chapter contains insights from the Bible and teachings from Judaism and other spiritual traditions, accompanied by suggestions for practice to bring alive each of the God metaphors. Rabbi Toba Spitzer has helped many people satisfy their spiritual hunger. With God Is Here she will inspire you to find new and perhaps surprising ways of encountering the divine, right where you are. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Thaddeus Metz’s new book ‘God, Soul and the Meaning of Life’ presents a brief analysis of supernaturalist views about the meaning of life – my specific concern being the Divine purpose theory. While the view locates meaning in the fulfilment of some divine mandate, I show that this theory is, at best, unattractive. In this essay, I challenge the view that a belief in God is not necessary for the Divine purpose theory to be viable. I show that if (...) we were to agree that a belief in God is inconceivable, then a theory built on such a belief is, at best, wishful thinking. Arguing from a subjectivist perspective, I make clear the fact that any recourse to a godly mandate as what makes life meaningful inadvertently assumes an extrinsic and instrumental character, which makes such a pursuit an unattractive form of meaningfulness. Finally, I show that the God purpose theory is much too narrow as it fails to capture other paths to meaningfulness that do not involve a recourse to God, and also that any assigned purpose is unnecessary (and, therefore, unattractive), if God is all-knowing, all-powerful, etc. (shrink)

The use of robotic workers is likely to continue to increase as time passes. Hence it is crucial to examine the types of effects this occurrence could have on employment patterns. Invariably, as new job opportunities emerge due to robotic innovations, others will be closed off. Further, the characteristics of the workforce in terms of age, education, and income could profoundly change as a result.

Robots as social companions in close proximity to humans have a strong potential of becoming more and more prevalent in the coming years, especially in the realms of elder day care, child rearing, and education. As human beings, we have the fascinating ability to emotionally bond with various counterparts, not exclusively with other human beings, but also with animals, plants, and sometimes even objects. Therefore, we need to answer the fundamental ethical questions that concern human-robot-interactions per se, and we (...) need to address how we conceive of »good lives«, as more and more of the aspects of our daily lives will be interwoven with social robots. (shrink)

The discussion about robots in elderly care is populated by doom scenarios about a totally dehumanized care system in which elderly people are taken care of by machines. Such scenarios are helpful as they attend us to what we think is important with regard to the quality elderly care. However, this article argues that they are misleading in so far as they (1) assume that deception in care is always morally unacceptable, (2) suggest that robots and other information (...) technologies necessarily deceive elderly people by creating a “virtual” world as opposed to a “real” world, (3) assume that elderly people of the future have similar ICT skills and interests as the elderly people of today, and (4) assume a simplistic view of technologies. The article suggests an approach to evaluating care robots and ICT in health care which acknowledges and addresses a number of ethical problems raised by robotic care—for instance disengagement problems—while taking into account that some elderly people may need care that does not treat them as (empirically) autonomous, that many the elderly of the future are likely to be digital natives, and that the task of evaluating technologies in care is more complicated than the discussion of deception suggests. (shrink)

From the beginning, Augustine's "Confessions" presents itself as a dialogue with God. Taking a cue from Ludwig Feuerbach’s "The Essence of Christianity [Das Wesen des Christentums]," this dialogue can easily be dismissed as a projection of the self. This would imply that the divine otherness is nothing more than a mirror of one’s own fears and preferences. “Does this critique,” I asked myself in this piece, “really do justice to a position like that of Augustine?” For a long time, I (...) did not know how to approach what I had — provisionally — called Augustine’s dialogue with God. It appeared to me that Augustine, in an accidental and indirect way, had re-invented the Platonic dialogue and had turned it into a new Christian genre. “It is true,” I told myself, “that the genre of the Confessions shows family resemblances with the hagiography and the autobiography. But most certainly it cannot be reduced to these genres.” The Greek words ‘hagios’ (holy) and ‘autos’ (self) are in flagrant contradiction with the intention of the Confessions. Augustine tries to stay clear of any claim of holiness and only highlights his own ‘self’ to immediately question it. “Is the Platonic dialogue,” I asked myself, “not a far more appropriate predecessor for Augustine’s dialogue with God?” Both types of dialogues can be seen as true dia logoi in which at least two different voices emerge. However, contrary to what one would expect, it is not the dialogue form itself that frames these two voices. Instead the two voices emerge within the discourse of a single speaker, incorporating true otherness within the discourse of the self. Building on these reflections, I explore how Augustine's dialogue with God succeeds in eluding Feuerbach's charge of self-projection. (shrink)

This chapter discusses imaginary technologies that do not exist yet but are expected to be implemented in clinical work in the near future. Adopting a phenomenological view on the politics of organizational time, we illuminate how the rhetoric of futurity and protentional anticipation dominate managerial acts in healthcare organizations. This future-oriented management includes strategies of risk assessment, investments in emerging technologies, and other actions to reduce external uncertainty and move towards an enhanced capacity to cope with potential challenges. However, we (...) suggest that potentially harmful consequences of emerging technologies cannot be established reliably in advance by investigation, experiments, and risk assessments. The phenomenological notion of embodied information infrastructure allows us to consider how visions of complex technologies intertwine with clinical practices in healthcare professionals’ work. We use two examples of imaginary technologies—automated decision-making systems and care robotics—to concretize how the line between imaginary technologies and existing technologies becomes increasingly volatile in healthcare organizations. (shrink)

Ethical decision-making theories in behavioural ethics management have been developed through the social sciences, psychology, social psychology, and cognitive neurosciences. These theories are either cognitive, non-cognitive or an integration of both. Other scholars have recommended redefining what ethical means through moral philosophy and theology. Buddhism is a religion, a philosophy, a psychology, an ethical system and an art of living. The divine states in Buddhism are virtues that could be developed by anyone regardless of their religion or non-religion through Buddhist (...) meditation. They are so called because they enable individuals to develop ‘God-like qualities’. The theoretical insights of the divine states indicate how to eliminate negative emotions, such as anger, fear, delusion and envy, by cultivating love and compassion towards both the self and others. Accordingly, this paper contributes to EDM by redefining what ethical means through the meanings managers who practise Buddhist meditation assign to divine states in their lived experience of EDM in organisations in Sri Lanka. The sample consisted of 17 Buddhists, 1 Hindu, 1 Muslim and 1 no-religion. Data were collected using semi-structured in-depth interviews and was analysed with IPA. The findings indicated that how the managers made meaning of an ethical decision was influenced by their loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy and equanimity. The findings also indicated that the managers justified the reasons for their decisions subsequently through the benefits to themselves as well as their employees. Accordingly, this study supports the view that EDM is an integrated approach. (shrink)

-/- In the Summa Theologiae ‘simplicity’ is treated as pre–eminent among the terms which may properly be used to describe the divine nature. The Question in which Thomas demonstrates that God must be ‘totally and in every way simple’ (1.3.7) immediately follows the five proofs of God's existence, preceding the treatment of His other perfections, and being frequently used as the basis for proving them. Then in Question 13 ‘univocal predication' is held to be ‘impossible between God and creatures’ so (...) that at best ‘some things are said of God and creatures analogically’ because of the necessity of using ‘various and multiplied conceptions’ derived from our knowledge of created beings to refer to what in God is simple for ‘the perfections flowing from God to creatures… pre–exist in God unitedly and simply, whereas in creatures they are received divided and multiplied’ (1.13.5). In line with this, in the De Potentia Dei the treatment of analogical predication is integrated into that of ‘the Simplicity of the Divine Essence’ (Q 7). Moreover, it lies at the root of Thomas's rejection of any possibility of a Trinitarian natural theology such as, for instance, St Anselm or Richard of St Victor had attempted to develop, on the grounds that ‘it is impossible to attain to the knowledge of the Trinity by natural reason’ since ‘we can know what belongs to the unity of the essence, but not what belongs to the distinction of the persons’ (1.32.1). Even modern minds sympathetic to Thomas have clearly found it difficult to understand his concern for the divine simplicity: in his Aquinas Lecture Plantinga speaks for many in stating that it is ‘a mysterious doctrine’ which is ‘exceedingly hard to grasp or construe’ and ‘it is difficult to see why anyone should be inclined to accept it’. Not surprisingly, therefore, some of the most widely read twentieth–century commentators on Aquinas have paid little attention to it. Increased interest has recently been shown in it, but a number of discussions pay insufficient attention to the historical context out of which Thomas's interest in the doctrine emerged, and consequently tend to misconstrue its nature. (shrink)

A. N. Williams examines the conception of the intellect in patristic theology from its beginnings in the work of the Apostolic Fathers to Augustine and Cassian in the early fifth century. The patristic notion of intellect emerges from its systematic relations to other components of theology: the relation of human mind to the body and the will; the relation of the human to the divine intellect; of human reason to divine revelation and secular philosophy; and from the use of the (...) intellect in both theological reflection and spiritual contemplation. The patristic conception of that intellect is therefore important for the way it signals the character of early Christian theology as both systematic and contemplative and as such, distinctive in its approach from secular philosophies of its time and modern Christian theology. (shrink)

In the Summa Theologiae ‘simplicity’ is treated as pre–eminent among the terms which may properly be used to describe the divine nature. The Question in which Thomas demonstrates that God must be ‘totally and in every way simple’ immediately follows the five proofs of God's existence, preceding the treatment of His other perfections, and being frequently used as the basis for proving them. Then in Question 13 ‘univocal predication' is held to be ‘impossible between God and creatures’ so that at (...) best ‘some things are said of God and creatures analogically’ because of the necessity of using ‘various and multiplied conceptions’ derived from our knowledge of created beings to refer to what in God is simple for ‘the perfections flowing from God to creatures… pre–exist in God unitedly and simply, whereas in creatures they are received divided and multiplied’ . In line with this, in the De Potentia Dei the treatment of analogical predication is integrated into that of ‘the Simplicity of the Divine Essence’ . Moreover, it lies at the root of Thomas's rejection of any possibility of a Trinitarian natural theology such as, for instance, St Anselm or Richard of St Victor had attempted to develop, on the grounds that ‘it is impossible to attain to the knowledge of the Trinity by natural reason’ since ‘we can know what belongs to the unity of the essence, but not what belongs to the distinction of the persons’ . Even modern minds sympathetic to Thomas have clearly found it difficult to understand his concern for the divine simplicity: in his Aquinas Lecture Plantinga speaks for many in stating that it is ‘a mysterious doctrine’ which is ‘exceedingly hard to grasp or construe’ and ‘it is difficult to see why anyone should be inclined to accept it’. Not surprisingly, therefore, some of the most widely read twentieth–century commentators on Aquinas have paid little attention to it. Increased interest has recently been shown in it, but a number of discussions pay insufficient attention to the historical context out of which Thomas's interest in the doctrine emerged, and consequently tend to misconstrue its nature. (shrink)

There has long been a curious fascination with eyes and mirrors as evident throughout art, film, and literature. From fantastical characters who shoot lasers from their eyes to those whose memories are altered visually, the way in which a story portrays the function of the eyes demonstrates the way the storyteller imagines the character's relationship to the world. Is the character powerful or powerless? Does she impact her world or is she impacted by that world? The storyteller's portrayal of vision (...) answers those questions and reveals deeper assumptions about the individual and her ability to move within and to know her world. While eyes are associated with interacting with this world, mirrors are distinctly associated with interacting with some other world. Mirrors function as portals to other worlds, windows that glimpse an alternate reality, or harmful traps that hide sinister intentions. How an author portrays eyes reveals how she understands the world, while how she portrays mirrors reveals how she imagines the unknown. (shrink)

The authors at times propose that robots are mere depictions of social agents (a philosophical claim) and at other times that people conceive of social robots as depictions (an empirical psychological claim). We evaluate each claim's accuracy both now and in the future and, in doing so, we introduce two dangerous misperceptions people have, or will have, about social robots.

The principle behind anthropomorphic robots is that the appearance and behaviours enable the pre-defined social skills that people use with each other each day to be used as a means of interaction. One of the problems with this approach is that there are many attributes of such a robot which can influence a user’s behaviour, potentially causing undesirable effects. This paper aims to identify and discuss a series of the most salient behaviour influencing factors in the literature, related to (...) a number of robot attributes. A particularly novel aspect of this work is the study of robots as monitoring or data collection devices, one of several behaviour influencing factors which has received insufficient attention. As a first step towards this, the PSA matrix is produced, which visualises the relationships between system attributes and user perceptions, grounded in empirical evidence in the literature. This matrix highlights gaps in the literature, brings together a series of salient behaviour influencing factors for the first time and gives a clear view of the state of the art. (shrink)

I draw on earlier research to develop contrasts between interpreting the conception of God in the Divine Names in terms of Neoplatonic, Latin Scholastic(specifically Albertinian and Thomistic), and Byzantine / Eastern Christian frameworks. Based on these contrasts, I then explore whether Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas were influenced, and possibly led astray, by John Sarracen’s translation of key terms and phrases in the Divine Names such as (Greek), (Greek)and its cognates, (Greek), (Greek), and (Greek). I conclude that Sarracen’s mistranslation (...) of (Greek) by essentia clearly reinforces an essentialist interpretation of God in the Divine Names—that is, the view that God is an absolutely simple being identical to its essence. It is not clear that his translations of the other terms do the same, although they are most often read in an essentialist fashion by Albert and Aquinas. (shrink)

The question of whether individuals retain interests or can be harmed after death is highly contentious, particularly within the context of deceased organ retrieval, retention and use. This paper argues that posthumous interests and/or harms can and do exist in the Konkomba traditional setting through the concept of ancestorship, a reputational concept of immense cultural and existential significance in this setting. I adopt Joel Feinberg’s account of harms as a setback to interests. The paper argues that a socio-culturally sensitive regulatory (...) framework does not necessarily exclude the donation of human biomaterials for transplant and science research. Indeed, when customary values are explored with open-mindedness and sensitivity it may be shown that such donation can form part of the important customs of some communities in this jurisdiction. Accordingly, a context-appropriate governance framework could utilise the cultural value of ancestorship as an incentive to encourage organ donation in the Ghanaian traditional setting. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Divine and Artistic Ideal:Ideas and Insights for Cross-Cultural Aesthetic EducationMing Dong Gu (bio)IntroductionPeople in different cultural traditions would praise an excellent work of art as a masterpiece that has attained the status of the divine. This is a practice inherited from the ancient past. In high antiquity, when people did not have sufficient knowledge of artistic creation, they attributed creative inspirations and superb art to gods. In ancient (...) Greece people believed that all the arts were created by the Muses, daughters of the supreme god Zeus.1 Accordingly, they viewed divine creation as the highest order of representation and used the divine as the yardstick to measure artistic excellence. In early Greek thought Plato, through the mouth of Socrates, praised Homer as "the best and most divine of all."2 Citing the exquisite lyric poetry by Tynnnichs of Chalcis as evidence, he declared, "the god would show us, lest we doubt, that these lovely poems are not of man or human workmanship, but are divine and from the gods, and that the poets are nothing but interpreters of the gods, each one possessed by the divinity to whom he is in bondage."3In the Chinese tradition similar ideas existed from high antiquity. In early Chinese thought there is a parable in Zhuangzi's (369–286 BC) philosophical writing. It narrates how a skillful carpenter was commissioned by a king to make an ornate music stand. When the stand was finished, people, struck by the life likeness of the carved birds and animals on the stand, believed that he was able to make such superb art work because he was endowed with the divine power of gods.4 In literary criticism Yan Yu (fl. 1180-1235), a literary theorist whose views have exerted a lasting impact on Chinese poetry and poetics, proclaimed the divine to be the ultimate standard for [End Page 88] the poetic art: "There is only one ultimate achievement in poetry: it is called 'entering the divine.' When poetry enters the domain of the divine, it has reached its perfection and limit. Nothing can be added to it!"5 In other traditions, if people want to pass the highest praise for an excellent work of art, a simple exclamation, "That is divine!" would be sufficient.Thus, across cultures art has been related to the divine. Without reference to it, aesthetic conceptions of art and artistic creation would not be what they are today. This is because in many traditions the divine used to be viewed as the ultimate aesthetic ideal, and aesthetics is full of notions, ideas, and concepts related to it, without which artistic criticism and aesthetic education would be in a much impoverished state. The divine in art, however, is a slippery category in aesthetics that has been intuitively explored since high antiquity. In this article I will examine some critical and theoretical data on the divine, divine creation, and divine spirit in artistic representation from the Chinese and Western traditions and explore how the Chinese and Western traditions employ ideas of the divine for artistic conceptions and aesthetic education. On the basis of comparison and contrast, I will try to obtain some rational insights into the relationship between artistic creation and the divine in terms of logical analysis. Finally, I will make some efforts to reconceptualize the insights drawn from both traditions and explore to what extent the divine is still relevant to present-day aesthetics, how an aesthetic ideal may be conceived according to ideas of the divine in artistic representation, and in what ways an artwork may be considered to have entered the divine realm of the artistic ideal.God, Nature, and the Artistic IdealDespite vast differences in aesthetic conceptions, we can observe a discernable movement in the Chinese and Western notions of the divine in art from theistic and intuitive characterization to rational and logical conceptualization. This movement is characterized by a shift in emphasis from a personal god to impersonal nature, and from divine creator to human creator. Chinese and Western traditions started with a similar concern: What is the aesthetic ideal in artistic representation? Both traditions believe that the artistic ideal is... (shrink)

One of the major works of the great German theologian Emil Brunner, The Divine Imperative deals with what we ought to do. People are unconvinced that there is an inviolable moral obligation governing human life because they do not believe that the 'good'can be precisely and clearly known. Haven't some generations called bad what others have called good? Aren't moral standards relative? Doesn't religion lack uniform and practical moral guidance? Brunner discusses the moral confusion we face. He analyses the nature (...) of the Good, showing why the Christian faith as understood by the Protestant Reformers provides the only true approach and answer to the ethical problem. Philosophical ethics, whether ancient or modern, cannot correctly define the Good, becausethe Good is regarded either as too abstract and absolute or as too concrete and relative. Christianity, by contrast, sees the moral problem as one of responsibility between humans who are created so as to respond to God. He created men for responsive fellowship with Him, establishing orderly ways of acting in the world. Correct understanding of the nature of society, family, state, economic life, is needed to discern one's duty. Because Brunner's analysis is at once fundamental and comprehensive, this book remains a fresh and compelling treatment of the moral problem. It offers a provocative discussion and solution of a perennial human problem. (shrink)

Plato held that the Agathon (Being itself in its font) is the source or ‘common cause’ both of being(s) and of our understanding, both of the world (cosmos) and of our intellectual grasp thereof, both of the world beyond us (objectivity) that yet includes us and of the world of our inner thoughts (subjectivity) that yet stretches out to embrace the entire universe. This divine presupposition, found ‘philosophically’ in Plato and ‘religiously’ in Augustine’s doctrine of divine illumination, is that God (...) is the common cause of us and our world, for both are held within the same divine/cosmic embrace, by the same Spirit operating within us and beyond us. This leads us to a ‘hand-in-its-glove’ or ‘mind-in-its-world’ proportionate realism that avoids the epistemological defects of Kant’s transcendental realism and Bhaskar’s critical realism. Finally, we should regard knowing by acquaintance as paradigmatic, as the fundamental form of knowing in terms of which the other types are best approached and understood. There is, I suggest, an important sense in which ‘all knowing is knowing in the biblical sense.’. (shrink)

This book is a radical reappraisal of positivism as a major movement in philosophy, science and culture. In examining positivist movement and its contemporary impact, I had the following goals. First, to provide a more precise and systematic definition of the notion of positivism. Second, to describe positivism as a trend of thought concerned not only with the theory of knowledge and philosophy of science, but also with problems of ethics, social, and political philosophy, and show that its representatives usually (...) thought that the problems of the latter cannot be solved without solving the former first. Third, to examine the development of positivism as a movement which preserves a certain tradition and hence possesses some coherence, although the forms of this movement changed in different historical circumstances: it was born in the eighteenth century during the Enlightenment, took the form of social positivism in the nineteenth century, was transformed at the turn of the twentieth century with the emergence of empirio-criticism, and became logical positivism in the twentieth century. Fourth, to reveal the external and internal factors of this evolution. Fifth, to disclose the relation of positivism to other trends of philosophy. Sixth, to determine the influence the positive mind had not only upon philosophy, but upon other cultural phenomena, such as the natural and social sciences, law, politics, arts, religion, and everyday life. (shrink)

This essay addresses the other side of the robot ethics debate, taking up and investigating the question “Can and should robots have rights?” The examination of this subject proceeds by way of three steps or movements. We begin by looking at and analyzing the form of the question itself. There is an important philosophical difference between the two modal verbs that organize the inquiry—can and should. This difference has considerable history behind it that influences what is asked about and (...) how. Second, capitalizing on this verbal distinction, it is possible to identify four modalities concerning social robots and the question of rights. The second section will identify and critically assess these four modalities as they have been deployed and developed in the current literature. Finally, we will conclude by proposing another alternative, a way of thinking otherwise that effectively challenges the existing rules of the game and provides for other ways of theorizing moral standing that can scale to the unique challenges and opportunities that are confronted in the face of social robots. (shrink)

Philosophy has always been parasitic on other bodies of knowledge, especially religious thought. Greek philosophy in Italy emerged as a purification of Orphic religious traditions. Orphic votaries adopted various disciplines in the attempt to become divine, which led Pythagoras and Empedocles to define philosophy as a path to divinity. According to Plato and Aristotle, the goal of philosophy is to become “as much like a god as is humanly possible.” Classical Greek philosophy is not the study of the divine but (...) the project of becoming divine, a project which it shares with Christianity. Greek philosophy and Christianity have different paths to the divine, but they share a common aspiratio. (shrink)

In this essay I will explore an understanding of the potential moral agency of robots; arguing that the key characteristics of physical embodiment; adaptive learning; empathy in action; and a teleology toward the good are the primary necessary components for a machine to become a moral agent. In this context; other possible options will be rejected as necessary for moral agency; including simplistic notions of intelligence; computational power; and rule-following; complete freedom; a sense of God; and an immaterial soul. (...) I argue that it is likely that such moral machines may be able to be built; and that this does not diminish humanity or human personhood. (shrink)

An under-examined aspect of human–robot interaction that warrants further exploration is whether robots should be permitted to influence a user’s behavior for that person’s own good. Yet an even more controversial practice could be on the horizon, which is allowing a robot to “nudge” a user’s behavior for the good of society. In this article, we examine the feasibility of creating companion robots that would seek to nurture a user’s empathy toward other human beings. As more and more (...) computing devices subtly and overtly influence human behavior, it is important to draw attention to whether it would be ethically appropriate for roboticists to pursue this type of design pathway. Our primary focus is on whether a companion robot could encourage humans to perform charitable acts; this design possibility illustrates the range of socially just actions that a robot could potentially elicit from a user and what the associated ethical concerns may be. (shrink)

The claim of this paper is to present Spinoza’s view on self-esteem and positive reciprocity, which replaces the human being in a monistic psycho-dynamical affective framework, instead of a dualistic pedestal above nature. Without naturalising the human being in an eliminative materialistic view as many recent neuro-scientific conceptions of the mind do, Spinoza finds an important entry point in a panpsychist and holistic perspective, presenting the complexity of the human being, which is not reducible to the psycho-physiological conditions of life. (...) From a panpsychist point of view, qualities and values emerge from the world, in a situation similar to what could be seen in animism, or early childhood psychology, where the original distance between the mind and the exterior thing is reduced ad minima, and both can even interrelate in a confusing manner. Human reality is nevertheless a social reality, it supposes a basis for shared competencies, that we will present as grounded on the one hand of the sustaining character of the essence of the animal-man as will-to-power. Negatively speaking we all share same asocial tendencies and affects. This aspect is not only negative but it is also a will to develop and master the environment, because values have an onto-metaphysical immanent dimension in nature, not because there is an individual bottom-up will to survive, but rather a will to live in harmony with the surrounding world. On the other hand, we shall see that Spinoza understood and described perfectly the power of the mind over the power of the affects, as a co-constituting dimension, which is alienating natural dependencies, leaving an inner space for the objectification of ethical values, not related to mere compensation mechanisms. (shrink)

One of the enduring concerns of moral philosophy is deciding who or what is deserving of ethical consideration. Much recent attention has been devoted to the "animal question" -- consideration of the moral status of nonhuman animals. In this book, David Gunkel takes up the "machine question": whether and to what extent intelligent and autonomous machines of our own making can be considered to have legitimate moral responsibilities and any legitimate claim to moral consideration. The machine question poses a fundamental (...) challenge to moral thinking, questioning the traditional philosophical conceptualization of technology as a tool or instrument to be used by human agents. Gunkel begins by addressing the question of machine moral agency: whether a machine might be considered a legitimate moral agent that could be held responsible for decisions and actions. He then approaches the machine question from the other side, considering whether a machine might be a moral patient due legitimate moral consideration. Finally, Gunkel considers some recent innovations in moral philosophy and critical theory that complicate the machine question, deconstructing the binary agent--patient opposition itself. Technological advances may prompt us to wonder if the science fiction of computers and robots whose actions affect their human companions could become science fact. Gunkel's argument promises to influence future considerations of ethics, ourselves, and the other entities who inhabit this world. (shrink)

This article analyzes the past, the present, and the future of business institution in society in terms of its management approaches by using the framework of human evolution, and discovers a trend that explains three paradigms in business management that have been witnessed so far. Extending the trend, it projects another two paradigm shifts to take place in future, and establishes that the business management practice is going to evolve further where it will turn from its present status of ‘result-oriented (...) management’to ‘process-oriented management’ in terms of its focus, or in other words, it will evolve from ‘professional management’ to ‘ethical management’ in terms of its underlying philosophy. As a result, the business enterprise will evolve from its present form of economic organization to a humane organization, and further up to a divine organization. Expressed the other way round, the business institution that had kicked off as an industrial organization has got transformed to a human organization by now; however, in the future, it will further evolve to its final level of a divine organization. (shrink)

At Yannaras and to Zizioulas there is an absolutization and idealization of otherness, which, together with freedom, are two fundamental attributes of personhood. Alterity acquires value and meaning only in relation with relational factors: love, fellowship and, also, being/nature. Due to the fact that, at Yannaras, nature denies apriori the person as otherness (the ratio between person and nature is defined under the aspect of: priority, inclusion, transcendence or conflict). S. Agouridic qualified both Zizioulas and Yannaras as “fighter against/opponent of (...) ousia” their ontology becoming personhood-ology. It may be however dangerous to submit the person to a “dictated or imposed otherness which reduces or diminishes the size of the identity (the common nature of people). In a conception about intersubjectivity Other is more important than Ego and dominate it, and “the dialogically element and reciprocity, which are being inherent to the intersubjectivity and to the communion between people, are inevitably reduced”. In reply to a “theology of the relationship” developed through ontology’s speculations of the person was the assertion of both Lossky, as well as Panagopoulos of meta-ontological and apophatic character of the person. (shrink)