Within recent years, we have witnessed an alarming increase in so-called school-shootings, where one or more students enter their school and purposely start shooting other students or staff. Earlier, the phenomenon was primarily American, but lately school-shootings have also been seen in Canada, Europe, and Australia. School-shootings have become an increasing problem and the phenomenon calls for more thorough investigation. In this article, we analyse the actions of teachers, more specifically the ones where teachers give their lives to save students. (...) This unselfish act is analysed in the light of Jacques Derrida’s ethical discussions around ‘the gift of death’, and is displayed as an absolute responsibility. Moreover, the sacrificial actions displayed by teachers are viewed as acts of primitive leadership, which take us back to the romanticism and heroism of leadership. Unlike the everyday management of organisations, crises call for extraordinary leadership; for sacrifice and responsibility. (shrink)

How does modern writing in French grapple with the present absence and absent presence of lost loved ones? How might it challenge and critique the relegation of certain deaths to the realm of the unmournable? What might this reveal about the role of the literary in the French and francophone world and shifting conceptions of the nation state? Essays from the Revolution to the present day explore these questions from a variety of perspectives, bringing out the ways in which mourning (...) blurs the boundaries between the personal and the historical, the aesthetic and the ethical, the self and the other, and ultimately reasserting its truly critical resonance as a concept. (shrink)

Approaches to business ethics can be roughly divided into two streams: ‹codes of behavior’ and ‹forms of subjectification’, with code-oriented approaches clearly dominating the field. Through an elaboration of poststructuralist approaches to moral philosophy, this paper questions the emphasis on codes of behaviour and, thus, the conceptions of the moral and responsible subject that are inherent in rule-based approaches. As a consequence of this critique, the concept of a practice-based ‹ethics of responsiveness’ in which ethics is never final but rather (...) always ‹to come’, is investigated. In such an approach the ethical self is understood as being continuously constituted within power/knowledge relations. Following this line, we ask how one can become a responsible subject while also acknowledging certain limits of full responsibility. We thereby explore responsibility as a considered but unconditional openness in response to the other. (shrink)

Those who find their work meaningful often need to be more committed. Over-commitment, in turn, frequently results in stress, personal conflicts, and burnout. Such over-commitment, in other words, leads to employees needing to take more care of themselves. This paper considers the prospects for meaningful self-care in the context of working time reduction. For this, we consider the case of the four-day workweek, asking employees of such organizations to explain how they make meaning out of their newly found time off. (...) Conceptually, we rely upon the work of Michel Foucault, particularly his analysis of the care of the self. On its basis, we coded five self-care practices: (1) rest and recuperation, (2) professional and personal development, (3) domestic work, (4) balancing work, and (5) additional work. We conclude by highlighting the theoretical and practical implications of work reduction for the analytical, ethical, and practical pursuit of meaningful work. (shrink)

This book brings together the stories of biographers, novelists, scholars, and artists as they have written about the journeys (some literal, some figurative) they have made to their subjects. Contributors include Elizabeth Wood, J.J. Wilson, Leah Glasser, Jane Lazarre, and Alice Walker.

Ever since Freud, psychoanalysts have explored the connections between psychoanalysis and literature and psychoanalysis and philosophy, while literary criticism, social science and philosophy have all reflected on and made use of ideas from psychoanalytic theory. The Academic Face of Psychoanalysis presents contributions from these fields and gives the reader an insight into different understandings and applications of psychoanalytic theory. This book comprises twelve contributions from experts in their fields covering philosophy, psychoanalysis, sociology and literary theory. The chapters are divided into (...) three distinct sections: Psychoanalysis Philosophy Social science and literary theory Louise Braddock and Michael Lacewing successfully bring these contributions together with an in-depth introduction that allows the reader to explore the connections between the different disciplines. The multi-disciplinary approach to this book is rare; it will appeal to academics and students, from the subject areas of psychoanalysis, humanities and social science. (shrink)

Decision making during reproduction is complex for a variety of medical and social reasons. Anyone who has had a conversation with a family member about the “best time” to have a baby can attest to this — there is no “best time” or “best way.” Multiple pressures from any number of sources combine in a minefield of hazards made ever more complicated by restrictive laws in the US. Add to this a screening result of potential chromosomal aneuploidy and decision making (...) becomes ever more complex. Societal stigma and lack of adequate and accurate information during counseling certainly plays a role in the high number of terminations in the setting of diagnosed chromosomal aneuploidy, yet other factors also push families in this direction including medical considerations and the abysmal lack of social support programs. (shrink)

“Our impartiality is kept for abstract merit and demerit, which none of us ever saw.” -George Eliot, Middlemarch,book 4, chap. 40, 1871.Naturalized epistemology, as I understand it, is the practice of treating knowledge – human or otherwise – as a natural phenomenon, susceptible of investigation by the methods of empirical science. A naturalized approach to the study of knowledge differs saliently from more traditional forms of epistemology in taking the existence of knowledge for granted. Naturalized epistemologists do not concern themselves (...) with skeptical challenges. Nor are naturalized epistemologists much concerned with questions about what counts as “knowledge,” properly speaking. They do not worry if a bird’s natively specified program for star-based navigation is “justified” for the bird, nor if the sub-personal data structures and algorithms posited by cognitive psychologists can be properly counted as “beliefs.” The naturalized epistemologist is interested in the explanation of anything that even appears to be a cognitive achievement, whether or not it passes muster as “knowledge” in some preferred sense. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Dispelling the Myth of the Non-Singer:Embracing Two Aesthetics for SingingLouise M. PascaleI entered the Music Workshop course with trepidation. Of all the courses in my Master's program, I feared this one the most. My experiences with music have always been negative ones. As I entered the classroom, memories surfaced of the time I was told to mouth the words so I would not throw the rest of the class (...) off key and when I was laughed off the stage after a friend and I attempted a rendition of "Rolling O'er the Billows." After that, I was convinced I should not sing.1Maxine Greene reminds us how easy it is to get caught in the "main text of life," one that is "negotiated mostly by convention, routine, habit, duty and one we have very little choice in."2 Our long-held acceptance of the "singer" and "non-singer" provides a perfect example of Greene's metaphor. The traditional meaning of "singing" is created out of convention and habit, perpetuated by the "main text" (white, middle class) values of American society.Singing, as it is understood in today's educational settings, settled into its role in American music education as a result of a number of significant decisions made as early as the 1600s by prominent leaders of the church.3 Each of these decisions added to the growth and strength of the view of singing that became [End Page 165] what I refer to as a "taproot"4 in music education. This taproot continued to settle comfortably into the groundwork of music education and has had major and long-lasting effects on how we generally perceive and experience singing.The Western perspective of singing is wedded to a multitude of assumptions and beliefs and, over a period of time, has taken on complex meaning. It is associated with subtle nuances, such as valuing the high, lilting soprano voice over the alto. It is connected to various philosophies and strongly held convictions, such as improving vocal performance through the mastery of musical literacy, and even exclusionary practices, such as selecting out the "better singers" and suggesting that others refrain from singing at all.Perhaps the most profound consequence of this entrenched taproot is that it has left American society with a very limited perception of "singing." This singular, well-supported root, albeit strong, impenetrable, and closely connected with a number of cultural and societal assumptions, effectively narrows the scope of our perceptions, our language, our philosophy, and our teaching practices in the domain of singing in education. Illustration of the powerful ways music relates to and directly expresses the social attitudes and cognitive processes of a culture are found in the work of John Blacking and John Miller Chernoff.5 Their work provides an opportunity to reflect on the cultural and societal influences of the "taproot" philosophy of music education and the ways these have created limitations on who expresses themselves musically, why, how, and for whom.One of the most critical of those limitations is that we have classroom teachers who rarely, if ever, sing with their students. The gap between those in education who sing and offer musical activities to their students and those who do not is greater than ever. The "non-singer" mentality persists in educational communities and is not being addressed in music education circles. Singing continues to be considered, by most educators, to be a complicated skill that must be learned and requires training in breathing, vocal technique, and diction, and a basic knowledge of note reading.Many have strong feelings about singing; it is not a neutral subject. When the topic of singing is brought up, some involved in the conversation are likely to personalize it and be eager to share stories about their singing ability and to express their opinions about whether or not they qualify as a "singer." Sometimes the reactions can be extreme. Some people shy completely away from singing, to the point of running from the room at the mere suggestion that they might be asked to participate in singing in public. Others have an opposite reaction and experience singing as an enjoyable activity... (shrink)

There have been more studies, critical books, and learned articles produced over the years about Jane Austen than of any other English literary "great" with the exception of William Shakespeare. The flow of these studies greatly increased in the latter part of this century. Her novels, juvenilia and surviving letters have been intensively researched. Added to this, there is an ever growing interest in her life, times, the importance to her writing of a sense of place, and in her familial (...) and social relationships. To study her work within this wider context, the student needs to refer to the source texts, some written by members of her family after her death, printed in small printings and now both scarce and valuable. (shrink)

Our fast-paced society does not approve of solitude; being alone is antisocial and some even find it sinister. Why is this so when autonomy, personal freedom and individualism are more highly prized than ever before? Sara Maitland answers this question by exploring changing attitudes throughout history. Offering experiments and strategies for overturning our fear of solitude, she to helps us to practice it without anxiety and encourages us to see the benefits of spending time by ourselves. By indulging in (...) the experience of being alone, we can be inspired to find our own rewards and ultimately lead more enriched, fuller live. - The School of Life is dedicated to exploring life's big questions: How can we fulfill our potential? Can work be inspiring? Why does community matter? Can relationships last a lifetime? We don't have all the answers, but we will direct you toward a variety of useful ideas--from philosophy to literature, from psychology to the visual arts--that are guaranteed to stimulate, provoke, nourish, and console. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Dispelling the Myth of the Non-Singer:Embracing Two Aesthetics for SingingLouise M. PascaleI entered the Music Workshop course with trepidation. Of all the courses in my Master's program, I feared this one the most. My experiences with music have always been negative ones. As I entered the classroom, memories surfaced of the time I was told to mouth the words so I would not throw the rest of the class (...) off key and when I was laughed off the stage after a friend and I attempted a rendition of "Rolling O'er the Billows." After that, I was convinced I should not sing.1Maxine Greene reminds us how easy it is to get caught in the "main text of life," one that is "negotiated mostly by convention, routine, habit, duty and one we have very little choice in."2 Our long-held acceptance of the "singer" and "non-singer" provides a perfect example of Greene's metaphor. The traditional meaning of "singing" is created out of convention and habit, perpetuated by the "main text" (white, middle class) values of American society.Singing, as it is understood in today's educational settings, settled into its role in American music education as a result of a number of significant decisions made as early as the 1600s by prominent leaders of the church.3 Each of these decisions added to the growth and strength of the view of singing that became [End Page 165] what I refer to as a "taproot"4 in music education. This taproot continued to settle comfortably into the groundwork of music education and has had major and long-lasting effects on how we generally perceive and experience singing.The Western perspective of singing is wedded to a multitude of assumptions and beliefs and, over a period of time, has taken on complex meaning. It is associated with subtle nuances, such as valuing the high, lilting soprano voice over the alto. It is connected to various philosophies and strongly held convictions, such as improving vocal performance through the mastery of musical literacy, and even exclusionary practices, such as selecting out the "better singers" and suggesting that others refrain from singing at all.Perhaps the most profound consequence of this entrenched taproot is that it has left American society with a very limited perception of "singing." This singular, well-supported root, albeit strong, impenetrable, and closely connected with a number of cultural and societal assumptions, effectively narrows the scope of our perceptions, our language, our philosophy, and our teaching practices in the domain of singing in education. Illustration of the powerful ways music relates to and directly expresses the social attitudes and cognitive processes of a culture are found in the work of John Blacking and John Miller Chernoff.5 Their work provides an opportunity to reflect on the cultural and societal influences of the "taproot" philosophy of music education and the ways these have created limitations on who expresses themselves musically, why, how, and for whom.One of the most critical of those limitations is that we have classroom teachers who rarely, if ever, sing with their students. The gap between those in education who sing and offer musical activities to their students and those who do not is greater than ever. The "non-singer" mentality persists in educational communities and is not being addressed in music education circles. Singing continues to be considered, by most educators, to be a complicated skill that must be learned and requires training in breathing, vocal technique, and diction, and a basic knowledge of note reading.Many have strong feelings about singing; it is not a neutral subject. When the topic of singing is brought up, some involved in the conversation are likely to personalize it and be eager to share stories about their singing ability and to express their opinions about whether or not they qualify as a "singer." Sometimes the reactions can be extreme. Some people shy completely away from singing, to the point of running from the room at the mere suggestion that they might be asked to participate in singing in public. Others have an opposite reaction and experience singing as an enjoyable activity... (shrink)

Did the Romans in their dealings with other nations outside Italy know of any international laws, and did such laws ever crystallise from scattered observances into a general system? This is an interesting question, but one not easy to answer.

What is Japanese philosophy? This paper will address this question, not by giving a survey of the works of Japanese philosophers or a definition of the subject matter of Japanese philosophy, but by attempting to present how it emerged as a distinct philosophical tradition—by sketching the controversies that gave rise to its formation; the social, intellectual, and historical factors that paved the way to its development; and the revolution of thought which finally gave it the title “Japanese philosophy.” I will (...) argue that Japanese philosophy was born not because Japanese thinkers desperately wanted a philosophy that they could call their own, but because, first and foremost, they were thinking of ways to articulate the ever changing and paradoxical nature of reality. Formed by their religion and informed by the Chinese and Japanese classics, they used the language learned from the West and tried to answer the most fundamental questions of existence. A unique way of philosophizing thus emerged and became a true locus of dialogue between Eastern and Western thought.An Inquiry into the Historical Development of Philosophy in Japan. (shrink)

Some religious requirements seem genuinely arbitrary in the sense that there seem to be no sufficient explanation of why those requirements with those contents should pertain. This paper aims to understand exactly what it might mean for a religious requirement to be genuinely arbitrary and to discern whether and how a religious practitioner could ever be rational in obeying such a requirement. We lay out four accounts of what such arbitrariness could consist in, and show how each account provides a (...) different sort of baseline for understanding how obedience to arbitrary requirements could, in principle, be rational. (shrink)

A common object found within medical museums is the developmental series: an arrangement of embryos depicting the transformation of an unremarkable blob into an anatomically organized and recognizable organism. The developmental series depicts a normative process, one where bodies emerge in reliable sequential stages to reveal anatomically perfect beings. Yet a century before the developmental series would become a visual model of embryological development, the very process of development itself was discerned through the comparative study of preserved human fetuses—specifically, those (...) deemed “monstrous” or characterized as “malformations.” This article examines how anatomically diverse fetal bodies were reformulated from singular curiosities into alternative developmental pathways whose characteristics testified to the laws of nature and to the primordial, physical relationship between humans and other species. In early nineteenth century Amsterdam, the father-son team of physicians Gerard and Willem Vrolik built up an internationally renowned anatomical museum famous especially for Willem’s collection of fetal malformations. Physical preparations of fetal malformations play a central role in Willem’s monumental handbook on developmental embryology: comparing human embryos against one another and the embryos of other species, Willem plots out a sequence of embryological development in which a body’s form marks its place within the ever-unfolding natural order. In conversation with the literature on model organisms, this article explores how the “monstrous” gets standardized and, in doing so, contributes to the scientific production of a normative physiological process. (shrink)

The contributors to two new anthologies A Mind of One's Own: Feminist Essays on Reason and Objectivity (edited by Louise Antony and Charlene Witt) and Feminist Epistemologies (edited by Linda Alcoff and Elizabeth Potter) are philosophers for whom feminism is an intellectual as well as political commitment and they produce original, valuable feminist and philosophical work. I focus on differences between the anthologies and on two themes: the social character of knowledge and the allegedly oppressive "masculinism" of epistemological ideals.

In a recent article, J. Angelo Corlett criticises what he takes to be the ‘offensiphobic’ practices characteristic of many universities. The ‘offensiphobe’, according to Corlett, believes that offensive speech ought to be censured precisely because it offends. We argue that there are three serious problems with Corlett’s discussion. First, his criticism of ‘offensiphobia’ misrepresents the kinds of censorship practiced by universities; many universities may in some way censure speech which they regard as offensive, but this is seldom if ever a (...) manifestation of ‘offensiphobia’. Second, we attempt to reconstruct Corlett’s criticism of ‘offensiphobia’ as a criticism of the practice of censuring hate speech, and show that this argument is unsuccessful. Third, we offer some brief reflections on how labelling universities as ‘offensiphobic’ is especially problematic in light of the current climate of political interference in university research and teaching. (shrink)

This Reflection starts from the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic as unprecedented occasio to reflect on the approach to international law, which—it is contended—is anthropocentric, and its inadequacy to respond to current challenges. In the first part, the Reflection argues that there is, more than ever, an undeferrable need for a change of approach to international law toward ecocentrism, which puts the environment at the center and conceives the environment as us, including humans, non-human beings, and natural objects. To encourage the incorporation (...) of ecocentrism in the entire discipline, the Reflection will rely on some insight of ecofeminism, whose potential has not been fully investigated in international legal scholarship. In the second part, the Reflection illustrates what an eco-centric international law would mean, imagining three possible applications: first, what the author has called environmental global health, which is connected to the current pandemic and puts into question the proposals dealing with global health that completely miss the theorization of the environment as a whole; second, how actors of international law would change according to an eco-centric perspective; and, third, how the rules prohibiting the use of force might be reconceptualized. The analysis contained in these pages cannot itself exhaust all the possible nuances of the legal reasoning, but it is aimed at being a provocative starting point for a change in the mindset and approach of international legal scholarship. (shrink)

Charles S. Peirce has been commonly identified as the most original and versatile intellect that America has ever produced (Weiss, 1934: 403; Fisch 1981a: 17; etc.). He was not only a philosopher, but a true polymath. His reflections cover a wide range of disciplines. Peirce’s thought combines a rich knowledge of the philosophical tradition and the history of science with his valuable personal experience as a logician and as an experimental researcher. His deep involvement in scientific activ...

During the past two decades or so, the emergence and ever-accelerating development of digital media have sparked scholarly interest, debates, and complex challenges across many disciplines in the social sciences and the humanities. Within this diverse scholarship, the research on digitality, gender, sexuality, and embodiment has contributed substantially to many academic fields, such as media studies, sociology, religion, philosophy, and education studies. As a part of the special issue “Gender, Sexuality, and Embodiment in Digital Spheres: Connecting Intersectionality and Digitality,” this (...) roundtable consists of a conversation between five researchers from different (inter)disciplinary locations, all addressing matters of methodology, intersectionality, positionality, and theory in relation to the topics of gender, sexuality, and embodiment in digital spheres. Said roundtable begins with a critical self-positioning of the participants’ (inter)disciplinary and embodied locations using examples from their own research. The conversation then progresses to how these researchers have employed contemporary theories, conceptual vocabularies, methods, and analyses of gender, sexuality, and embodiment in digital spheres to then conclude with some ethico-political notes about collaborations between scholars and (digital) activists. (shrink)

In this study, we sought to obtain detailed opinion on some of the practical issues that might arise should physician-assisted suicide (PAS) ever be legalized in the UK. We carried out an anonymous postal questionnaire of medical students, junior and senior doctors working at an acute hospital trust, over a three-week period. A total of 435 questionnaires were distributed and we had an overall return rate of 34%. We found that opinions changed very little as doctors progressed from medical school (...) through to senior clinical positions. Overall, there was neutral opinion on whether PAS should be legalized. There was strong support for a multidisciplinary approach to the process and the involvement of the coroner. An opt-out clause for physicians who did not want to be involved in assisted suicide also received strong support. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Aristotle on the Concept of Shared Life by Sara BrillZoli FilotasSara Brill. Aristotle on the Concept of Shared Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020. Pp. 304. Hardback, $100.00.This book is a sweeping survey of Aristotle's approach to human life. It covers what might seem to be an idiosyncratic set of topics: friendship, animal behavior, commerce, tyranny, and motherhood are among the more prominent. But Sara Brill (...) pulls them together into a cohesive and illuminating picture, showing how each reflects Aristotle's conception of the concept "life" and the two Greek words, zôê and bios, that he uses to discuss it.The book rebukes thinkers who draw too sharp a contrast between animal life, on the one hand, and human politics, on the other. Until recently, Brill writes, that has been the dominant trend, uniting thinkers otherwise as different as Giorgio Agamben and David Keyt. For writers like them, human beings must overcome and sublimate their base, animal instincts (zôê, "mere life") in order to develop rational, uniquely human "ways of life" (bioi) like the lives of the citizen and the philosopher.For Brill, by contrast, the relationship between a person and the polis in Aristotle is "an intensified form of the relations between any animal and its proper habitat" (29). Indeed, every animal species has a distinctive way of life, a bios. The lavish discussion of animal "personality" or "character" (ethos) in the History of Animals suggests their range: lions are brave, cattle are stupid, dolphins are gentle, and so on. A personality not only helps an animal flourish in some habitat (topos) but also defines its relationships with other members of its species. So although Aristotle only classifies a few animal species as "political," Brill reminds us that there is a clear sense in which all are social.Aristotle famously claims that we humans are the "most political" of all animals, but Brill shows that this claim is both incomplete and misleading. For although Aristotle thinks that we outdo even bees in organized cooperation, he also stresses that we outdo even "warlike" eagles in our capacity for violence and solitude. Confronted with the opposition between solitary and gregarious ways of life, human beings "dualize" or "play a double game" (epamphoterizei) (HA I.1, 488a7). That is, much as frogs have water-dwelling and land-dwelling inclinations, humans are socially amphibious. Indeed, every human behavior—communal, solitary, and contentious alike—turns out to be an expression of animal nature. Brill points out that much of the Politics emphasizes the negative, the way that human beings make their own and each other's lives unlivable. Thus, although Aristotle embraces the sweetness of life, which has a distinct and intrinsic pleasure, his political project anticipates Nietzsche in squarely and unflinchingly studying its "horrors" (254).For Brill, the apex of human sociality in Aristotle is not politics but the so-called "perfect" friendship that Aristotle describes in Nicomachean Ethics VIII–IX and Eudemian Ethics VII. Perfect friends, Aristotle says repeatedly, "share a life" (suzên, cognate with zôê rather than bios). Friends grieve and rejoice together, perceive together, and philosophize together too. Brill emphasizes that this list includes the full range of psychic functions, from appetite all the way up to the highest forms of abstract thought. As they live together, friends build up a "nexus of meaning and value," a "world as it is created through the sharing of pleasure, judgment, and action" in which there "emerges a subjectivity which cannot be easily or simply conceived as 'mine'" (43, emphasis in original). In the best kinds of friendship, we realize that human life is lived by the partnership itself, not just the friends individually. [End Page 149]But Brill stresses that Aristotle thinks few people will ever find "perfect friendship." It is completely out of reach for most citizens of any real-world city. Yet for Aristotle, the flawed and diverse citizens of every polis nevertheless engage in a form of shared life: shared perception of the just and unjust. How is that possible? Through fragile institutions and customs, what Aristotle calls an "adornment of habits and an arrangement of correct laws" (Politics II.5... (shrink)

I argue that relativists about aesthetic and other evaluative language face some of the same objections as non-naturalists in ethics. These objections concern the metaphysics required to make it work. Unlike contextualists, relativists believe that evaluative propositions are not about the relation in which things stand to certain standards. Nevertheless, the truth of such propositions would depend on variable standards. I argue that relativism requires the existence of states of affairs very different from other things known to exist. Furthermore, there (...) seems to be no convincing reason to postulate such entities. However, if they do not exist, then relativism leads to an error theory. That is unattractive, as relativism was meant to preserve the truth of many evaluative claims. (shrink)

Prompted and ever diversified by the specifically human interrogative logos, scientific inquiries seek a common system of links in order to mutually confirm and rectify their results. Coming closer and closer to phenomenology, the sciences of life find the common ground of the reality in the ontopoiesis of life. Could it not be that the interrogative logos of science, participating in human creative inventiveness will bring together also the divergent scientific methods in a common network? A network which comprises natural (...) processes, societal sharing-in-life, and existential communication. Papers by: Gary Backhaus, Anjana Bhattacharjee, Simon Du Plock, Ignacy Fiut, Maria Golaszewska, Wendy C. Hamblet, Alexandr Kouzmin, Nikolay Kozhevnikov, Olga Louchakova, Jarlath Mc Kenna, Amy Louise Miller, Aria Omrani, Arthur Piper, Leszek Pyra, W. Kim Rogers, A.L. Samian, Camilo Serrano Bonitto, Natalia Smirnova, Eva Syristova, Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, Roberto Verolini, Eldon C. Wait, Leo Zonneveld. (shrink)

The human mind strives to maintain equilibrium between memory and oblivion and rejects irrelevant or disruptive memories. However, extensive amounts of stress hormones released at the time of a traumatic event can give rise to such powerful memory formation that traumatic memories cannot be rejected and do not vanish or diminish with time: Post-traumatic stress disorder may then develop. Recent scientific studies suggest that beta-blockers stopping the action of these stress hormones may reduce the emotional impact of disturbing memories or (...) prevent their consolidation. Using such an intervention could, in principle, help people who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, but the idea of doing so is controversial. I shall here discuss memory manipulation in this perspective. (shrink)

AI research is growing rapidly raising various ethical issues related to safety, risks, and other effects widely discussed in the literature. We believe that in order to adequately address those issues and engage in a productive normative discussion it is necessary to examine key concepts and categories. One such category is anthropomorphism. It is a well-known fact that AI’s functionalities and innovations are often anthropomorphized. The general public’s anthropomorphic attitudes and some of their ethical consequences have been widely discussed in (...) the literature. However, how anthropomorphism permeates AI research itself, and what the epistemological and ethical consequences of this might be have received less attention. In this paper we explore this issue. We first set the methodological/theoretical stage, making a distinction between a normative and a conceptual approach to the issues. Next, after a brief analysis of anthropomorphism and its manifestations in the public, we explore its presence within AI research with a particular focus on brain-inspired AI. Finally, on the basis of our analysis, we identify some potential epistemological and ethical consequences of the use of anthropomorphic language and discourse within the AI research community, thus reinforcing the need of complementing the practical with a conceptual analysis. (shrink)

Progress in neuroscience – notably, on the dynamic functions of neural networks – has deepened our understanding of decision‐making, acquisition of character and temperament, and the development of moral dispositions. The evolution of our cerebral architecture is both genetic and epigenetic: the nervous system develops in continuous interaction with the immediate physical and socio‐cultural environments. Each individual has a unique cerebral identity even in the relative absence of genetic distinction, and the development of this identity is strongly influenced by social (...) and cultural environments leaving major traces in the connectivity of the brain. This interaction introduces important elements of variability and plasticity. Synaptic epigenetic theories of cultural and social imprinting on our brain architecture suggest the possibility that we can be “epigenetically proactive” and adapt our social structures, in both the short and the long term, to benefit and constructively interact with the ever‐developing neuronal architecture of our brains. Epigenetic proaction can be described as a way to socially steer evolution by influencing the cultural imprints to be stored in our brains. The purpose of this article is to present, in a historical and ideological light, the idea that we may culturally shape the developing brain, and discuss some key risks and benefits of this endeavour. The article is a contribution to neuroethics. (shrink)

BackgroundAssessing consciousness in other subjects, particularly in non-verbal and behaviourally disabled subjects (e.g., patients with disorders of consciousness), is notoriously challenging but increasingly urgent. The high rate of misdiagnosis among disorders of consciousness raises the need for new perspectives in order to inspire new technical and clinical approaches. Main bodyWe take as a starting point a recently introduced list of operational indicators of consciousness that facilitates its recognition in challenging cases like non-human animals and Artificial Intelligence to explore their relevance (...) to disorders of consciousness and their potential ethical impact on the diagnosis and healthcare of relevant patients. Indicators of consciousness mean particular capacities that can be deduced from observing the behaviour or cognitive performance of the subject in question (or from neural correlates of such performance) and that do not define a hard threshold in deciding about the presence of consciousness, but can be used to infer a graded measure based on the consistency amongst the different indicators. The indicators of consciousness under consideration offer a potential useful strategy for identifying and assessing residual consciousness in patients with disorders of consciousness, setting the theoretical stage for an operationalization and quantification of relevant brain activity.ConclusionsOur heuristic analysis supports the conclusion that the application of the identified indicators of consciousness to its disorders will likely inspire new strategies for assessing three very urgent issues: the misdiagnosis of disorders of consciousness; the need for a gold standard in detecting consciousness and diagnosing its disorders; and the need for a refined taxonomy of disorders of consciousness. (shrink)

This book offers a penetrating analysis of issues raised by the perennial question, 'Are We Special?' It brings together scholars from a variety of disciplines, from astronomy and palaeontology to philosophy and theology, to explore this question. Contributors cover a wide variety of issues, including what makes humans distinct from other animals, the possibilities of artificial life and artificial intelligence, the likelihood of life on other planets, and the role of religious behavior. A variety of religious and scientific perspectives are (...) brought to bear on these matters. As a whole, the book addresses whether the issue of human uniqueness is one to which sciences and religions necessarily offer differing responses. (shrink)

This book explores the concept of Life from a range of perspectives. Divided into three parts, it first examines the concept of Life from physics to biology. It then presents insights on the concept from the perspectives of philosophy, theology, and ethics. The book concludes with chapters on the hermeneutics of Life, and pays special attention to the Biosemiotics approach to the concept. The question 'What is Life?' has been deliberated by the greatest minds throughout human history. Life as we (...) know it is not a substance or fundamental property, but a complex process. It is not an easy task to develop an unequivocal approach towards Life combining scientific, semiotic, philosophical, theological, and ethical perspectives. In its combination of these perspectives, and its wide-ranging scope, this book opens up levels and identifies issues which can serve as intersections for meaningful interdisciplinary discussions of Life in its different aspects. The book includes the four plenary lectures and selected, revised and extended papers from workshops of the 14th European Conference on Science and Theology (ECST XIV) held in Tartu, Estonia, April 2012. (shrink)

The rationalisation of the world is answered in Germany by an Aesthetic Revolution (Winckelmann, the romantic movement). It culminates in Nietzsche, and becomes a conservative revolution in the 1920s. After 1945, Beckmann and M. Walser embody the necessity of the aesthetic perspective.

How we understand the nature and role of grief depends on what we take its object to be and vice versa. This paper focuses on recent claims by philosophers that grief is frequently or even inherently irrational or inappropriate in one or another respect, all of which hinge on assumptions concerning the proper object of grief. By emphasizing the temporally extended structure of grief, we offer an alternative account of its object that undermines these assumptions and dissolves the apparent problems. (...) The principal object of grief, we suggest, is a loss of life possibilities, which is experienced, understood, and engaged with over a prolonged period. Other descriptions of grief's object identify more specific aspects of this loss in ways that do not respect a straightforward distinction between concrete and formal objects. (shrink)

In this article, we present and analyse the concept of Digital Twin (DT) linked to distinct types of objects (artefacts, natural, inanimate or living) and examine the challenges involved in creating them from a fundamental neuroethics approach that emphasises conceptual analyses. We begin by providing a brief description of DTs and their initial development as models of artefacts and physical inanimate objects, identifying core challenges in building these tools and noting their intended benefits. Next, we describe attempts to build DTs (...) of model living entities, such as hearts, highlighting the novel challenges raised by this shift from DTs of inanimate to DTs of living objects. Against that background, we give an account of contemporary research aiming to develop DTs of the human brain by building "virtual brains", e.g. the simulation engine The Virtual Brain (TVB) as it is carried out in the European Human Brain Project. Since the brain is structurally and functionally the most complex organ in the human body, and our integrated knowledge of its functional architecture remains limited in spite of recent neuroscientific advances, the attempts to create virtual copies of the human brain are correspondingly challenging. We suggest that a clear scientific theoretical structure, conceptual clarity and transparency regarding the methods and goals of this technological development are necessary prerequisites in order to make the project of constructing virtual brains a theoretically promising and socially beneficial scientific, technological and philosophical enterprise. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Reviewing the Arguments Problems, Solutions and Objectivity Conclusion References.

In this article, we present and analyse the concept of Digital Twin linked to distinct types of objects and examine the challenges involved in creating them from a fundamental neuroethics approach that emphasises conceptual analyses. We begin by providing a brief description of DTs and their initial development as models of artefacts and physical inanimate objects, identifying core challenges in building these tools and noting their intended benefits. Next, we describe attempts to build DTs of model living entities, such as (...) hearts, highlighting the novel challenges raised by this shift from DTs of inanimate to DTs of living objects. Against that background, we give an account of contemporary research aiming to develop DTs of the human brain by building "virtual brains", e.g. the simulation engine The Virtual Brain as it is carried out in the European Human Brain Project. Since the brain is structurally and functionally the most complex organ in the human body, and our integrated knowledge of its functional architecture remains limited in spite of recent neuroscientific advances, the attempts to create virtual copies of the human brain are correspondingly challenging. We suggest that a clear scientific theoretical structure, conceptual clarity and transparency regarding the methods and goals of this technological development are necessary prerequisites in order to make the project of constructing virtual brains a theoretically promising and socially beneficial scientific, technological and philosophical enterprise. (shrink)

Data science skills are rapidly becoming a necessity in modern science. In response to this need, institutions and organizations around the world are developing research data science curricula to teach the programming and computational skills that are needed to build and maintain data infrastructures and maximize the use of available data. To date, however, few of these courses have included an explicit ethics component, and developing such components can be challenging. This paper describes a novel approach to teaching data ethics (...) on short courses developed for the CODATA-RDA Schools for Research Data Science. The ethics content of these schools is centred on the concept of open and responsible science citizenship that draws on virtue ethics to promote ethics of practice. Despite having little formal teaching time, this concept of citizenship is made central to the course by distributing ethics content across technical modules. Ethics instruction consists of a wide range of techniques, including stand-alone lectures, group discussions and mini-exercises linked to technical modules. This multi-level approach enables students to develop an understanding both of “responsible and open science citizenship”, and of how such responsibilities are implemented in daily research practices within their home environment. This approach successfully locates ethics within daily data science practice, and allows students to see how small actions build into larger ethical concerns. This emphasises that ethics are not something “removed from daily research” or the remit of data generators/end users, but rather are a vital concern for all data scientists. (shrink)

C W Evers, J C Walker; Knowledge, Partitioned Sets and Extensionality: a refutation of the forms of knowledge thesis, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume.