The At Issue series includes a wide range of opinion on a single controversial subject. Each volume includes primary and secondary sources from a variety of perspectives -- eyewitnesses, scientific journals, government officials and many others. Extensive bibliographies and annotated lists of relevant organizations to contact offer a gateway to future research.

"The Ethics of Medical Testing: Modern Medical Testing Is Shaped by a Troubled Legacy; Strict Guidelines Ensure Safe and Ethical Medical testing on Humans; Medical Testing on Humans Can Be Dangerous and Corrupt; Review Boards Are Inadequate to Ensure Ethical Medical Testing; Medical Testing on Prisoners Is Unethical and Should Be Outlawed; Medical Testing on Prisoners Can Be Done Ethically; Medical Testing on Children Involves Unique Considerations; Special Rules Help Ensure Medical Testing in Vulnerable Populations Remains Ethical; Using Animals for (...) Medical Testing Is Unethical and Unnecessary; Using Animals for Medical Testing Is Both Ethical and Essential; Genetic Testing Ushers in a New Era of Ethical Considerations; Prenatal Genetic Testing Creates Ethical Dilemmas for Parents; International Standards for Medical Testing Are Essential to Prevent Ethical Abuses; Medical Testing In Developing Countries Is Conducted Ethically; Ethicists Disagree About Medical Testing Without Consent During Crises"--. (shrink)

Part I: The representation of life -- Can life be given a real definition? -- The representation of the living individual -- The representation of the life-form itself -- Part II: Naive action theory -- Types of practical explanation -- Naive explanation of action -- Action and time -- Part III: Practical generality -- Two tendencies in practical philosophy -- Practices and dispositions as sources of the goodness of individual actions -- Practice and disposition as sources of individual action.

Leading experts and rising stars in the field explore whether cosmopolitanism becomes impossible in the theoretical framework that assumed the absence of a final ground. The questions that the volume addresses refer exactly to the foundational predicament that characterizes cosmopolitanism: How is it possible to think cosmopolitanism after the critique of foundations? Can cosmopolitanism be conceived without an ‘ultimate’ ground? Can we construct theories of cosmopolitanism without some certainties about the entire world or about the cosmos? Should we continue to (...) look for foundations of cosmopolitan rights, norms and values? Alternatively, should we aim towards cosmopolitanism without foundations or towards cosmopolitanism with ‘contingent foundations’? Could cosmopolitanism be the very attempt to come to terms with the failure of ultimate grounds? Written accessibly and contributing to key debates on political philosophy, and social and political thought, this volume advances the concept of post-foundational cosmopolitanism by bridging the polarised approaches to the concept. (shrink)

In this new work, political theorist Michael J. Thompson argues that modern societies are witnessing a decline in one of the core building blocks of modernity: the autonomous self. Far from being an illusion of the Enlightenment, Thompson contends that the individual is a defining feature of the project to build a modern democratic culture and polity. One of the central reasons for its demise in recent decades has been the emergence of what he calls the cybernetic society, (...) a cohesive totalization of the social logics of the institutional spheres of economy, culture and polity. These logics have been progressively defined by the imperatives of economic growth and technical-administrative management of labor and consumption, routinizing patterns of life, practices, and consciousness throughout the culture. Evolving out of the neoliberal transformation of economy and society since the 1980s, the cybernetic society has transformed how that the individual is articulated in contemporary society. Thompson examines the various pathologies of the self and consciousness that result from this form of socialization--such as hyper-reification, alienated moral cognition, false consciousness, and the withered ego--in new ways to demonstrate the extent of deformation of modern selfhood. Only with a more robust, more socially embedded concept of autonomy as critical agency can we begin to reconstruct the principles of democratic individuality and community. (shrink)

BackgroundSafeguarding the right to die according to the principles of autonomy and freedom of each person has become more important in the last decade, therefore increasing regulation of Euthanasi...

Accession Number: ATLA0001712130; Hosting Book Page Citation: p 226-235.; Language(s): English; General Note: Bibliography: p 234-235.; Issued by ATLA: 20130825; Publication Type: Essay.

This book explores cosmopolitanism's radical dynamic as expressed in the struggles from below, all over the world, against exclusion and domination, pointing to the horizon of another world that appears possible. It shows that cosmopolitanism emerges negatively through disaffiliation from the given forms of belonging and by questioning of the existing meanings and unjust practices. Through a radical critique, cosmopolitanism goes to the roots of the existing world order based on the nation-state, exposes its exclusionary structure, and brings instead the (...) idea of a World Republic where No One Is Illegal and where all are equal citizens of the world. Caraus captures this radical dynamic in a cluster of novel concepts, such as 'cosmopolitanism of dissent', 'post-foundational cosmopolitanism', 'cosmopolitan ontology', 'institution of critique', 'radical cosmopolitical love', all integrated into an approach of a militant and radical cosmopolitics that reclaims the legacy of the first cosmopolitan stance of the Ancient Cynics. (shrink)

Despite their centrality and importance to both science and philosophy, relatively little has been written about thought experiments. This volume brings together a series of extremely interesting studies of the history, mechanics, and applications of this important intellectual resource. A distinguished list of philosophers and scientists consider the role of thought experiments in their various disciplines, and argue that an examination of thought experimentation goes to the heart of both science and philosophy.

The article presents critical examination of theories about collective responsibility attempting to cover responsibility for historic injustices. The author will also try to establish the possibility of collective responsibility for the present members of the group to make recompense for the injustices committed by their ancestors depending on two factors expounded in the article.

This article starts by noting the general lack of acknowledgment of alternative traditions in the dominant western sustainability discourse in education. After critically analyzing the western human–nature relationship in the context of Enlightenment, modernity and colonial expansion, this article introduces two non-western ecological discourses from Eurasia and Asia, Noöspherism and Neo-Confucianism, which offer clear contrasts to the western sustainability framework. Using theoretical argumentations, the article goes on to examine the cosmological and ontological categories expounded by Vladimir Vernadsky of Russia and (...) Yulgok Yi of Korea, whose philosophical foundations with unique foci on the anthropocosmic and cosmoanthropic types of human–nature relationships could well be alternatives and/or additions to the dominant western discourse. The article concludes with a twofold comparison: between Eurasian and Confucian heritages, and these two with the mainstream western ecological discourse. (shrink)

To what extent can philosophical thought experiments reveal norms? Some ethicists have argued that certain thought experiments reveal that people draw a morally significant distinction between "doing" and "allowing". I examine one such thought experiment in detail and argue that the intuitions it elicits can be explained by "prospect theory", a psychological theory about the way people reason. The extent to which such alternative explanations of the results of thought experiments in philosophy are generally available is an empirical question.

Attitudes toward sow husbandry differ between citizens and conventional pig farmers. Research showed that moral values could only predict the judgment of people in case of culling healthy animals in the course of a disease epidemic to a certain extent. Therefore, we hypothesized that attitudes of citizens and pig farmers cannot be predicted one-on-one by moral values. Furthermore, we were interested in getting insight in whether moral values can be useful in bridging the gap between attitudes toward sow husbandry of (...) citizens and pig farmers. Based on a questionnaire, it was found that pig farmers and citizens, when considered as one group, shared the valuation of most moral values. However, when studying the four clusters of citizens with different attitudes toward sow husbandry, determined in a previous study, a variation in valuation of the moral values between the clusters of citizens and farmers came to the fore. This means that moral values are interpreted differently by groups of people when forming attitudes toward sow husbandry. The results of our study give an indication of which moral values are weighed differently between clusters of citizens and pig farmers. This information can be useful in future research on attitudes toward animal husbandry in order to understand why attitudes differ between groups of people. Besides, our results can be useful for the pig sector and citizens to learn to understand each other’s attitudes. With this understanding it is possible to invest in a husbandry system that can build on societal support. (shrink)

À l’époque où la photographie n’existait pas encore, les reproductions d’oeuvres d’art et de peintures célèbres dominaient le marché de l’art. Au dix-huitième siècle, la comparaison entre les graveurs et les traducteurs était fort commune. Si, à l’époque, on accordait une grande importance à la fidélité des traductions aux textes originaux, de telles comparaisons amenaient à conclure à une sorte de submissivité purement technique des graveurs par rapport au talent génial des peintres. En examinant de près les copies réalisées, on (...) remarque toutefois que la fidélité à l’original n’était pas nécessairement la préoccupation première de ces traducteurs visuels. Ces derniers seraient plutôt des médiateurs. Cet article réexamine les actes de traduction visuelle du dix-huitième siècle afin de recadrer la pratique de la gravure pendant cette période et de permettre de mieux comprendre le mouvement qui irait d’un langage visuel artistique à un autre. Une étude de cas, celle de Nicolas de Launay, qui est sans doute l’un des plus grands graveurs du dix-huitième siècle, nous permettra de contextualiser cette pratique au coeur des débats historiques autour de la traduction. Notre objectif principal sera, finalement, de mettre en lumière les tensions qui existent entre les différentes disciplines associées à la peinture et à la gravure, ainsi que les processus complexes par le biais desquels les graveurs ont réussi à rester fidèles à la fois aux peintres, à leur public et à leur propre identité artistique. (shrink)

Asylum legal aid lawyers are under continuous public scrutiny. On the one hand, these lawyers are portrayed as being solely motivated by profit. On the other hand, they are depicted as leftist activists frustrating the legal system. When assisting their asylum seeking clients under the state's legal aid scheme, lawyers need to balance the client's interest, the public interest in the administration of justice and their own interest in profit or survival. The current book examines this balancing act and explores (...) the role of the institutional context. It does so by studying the decision making of asylum legal aid lawyers in the Netherlands and England in respect of two ethical issues: 'time vs. money' and 'hopeless cases'. This empirical research into lawyers' professional ethics in practice will appeal to scholars engaged in lawyers' ethics, policy makers and those involved in the regulation of the legal profession. Dissertation. [Subject: Politics, Human Rights Law, International Law]. (shrink)

This volume will focus on ethical dilemmas created by today's ever-changing technologies and how these issues have affected individuals, companies, and society to include policies, responsibilities, abuses, consequences, whistle-blowing, and other factors in a wide variety of technology areas.

This article focuses on the follow question: Are human enhancement technologies likely to be justice impairing or justice promoting? We argue that human enhancement technologies may not be inherently just or unjust, but when situated within obtaining social contexts they are likely to exacerbate rather than alleviate social injustices.

What reason does one have to resist oppression? The reasons that most easily come to mind are those having to do with justice—reasons that arise from commitments to human equality and the common good. In this paper, I argue that there are also reasons of love—reasons that arise from personal attachments to specific people, projects, or activities. I defend a distinctive form of resistance that is characteristically undertaken for reasons of love, which I call Quiet Resistance. Contrary to theories that (...) build reasons of justice into the definition of resistance, I argue that we have strong reason to consider Quiet Resistance a genuine form of resistance. Finally, I argue that the reasons in favor of engaging in Quiet Resistance help to explain its distinctive value. In short, when one engages in Quiet Resistance, one’s actions are valuable in large part because they allow one to maintain respect for one’s personal values and meaning in life under oppressive conditions. (shrink)

The renaissance in Hegel scholarship over the past two decades has largely ignored or marginalized the metaphysical dimension of his thought, perhaps most vigorously when considering his social and political philosophy. Many scholars have consistently maintained that Hegel’s political philosophy must be reconstructed without the metaphysical structure that Hegel saw as his crowning philosophical achievement. This book brings together twelve original essays that explore the relation between Hegel’s metaphysics and his political, social, and practical philosophy. The essays seek to explore (...) what normative insights and positions can be obtained from examining Hegel’s distinctive view of the metaphysical dimensions of political philosophy. His ideas about the good, the universal, freedom, rationality, objectivity, self-determination, and self-development can be seen in a new context and with renewed understanding once their relation to his metaphysical project is considered. _Hegel’s Metaphysics and the Philosophy of Politics_ will be of great interest to scholars of Hegelian philosophy, German Idealism, nineteenth-century philosophy, political philosophy, and political theory. (shrink)

Interview of Vsevolod Khoma with Professor Tamara Yashchuk within the framework of the research program “Ukrainian Philosophy of the 60s-80s of the 20th Century” of the Student Society of Oral History of Philosophy.

Primate research suggests that affiliation is a highly complex construct. Studies of primate affiliation demonstrate the need to distinguish between various affiliative behaviors, consider relationships as emergent properties of these behaviors, define affiliation in the context of general environmental responsiveness, and address developmental changes in affiliation across the lifespan.

Adorno was deeply influenced by ideas about the rationalization of mass society and effects of commodification on consciousness. The work of Max Weber and Georg Lukács were dual influences that shaped much of Adorno's own work. He develops his critique of the “totally administered society” as a confluence of Weber's rationalization thesis as well as Lukács' theory of reification of consciousness due to the penetration of the commodity form into everyday life. But Adorno moves beyond these ideas by arguing that (...) the spread of exchange‐value and quantification, carried forth via the commodity form, collapses the modern individual and its consciousness into the prevailing forms of dominant rationality. I then show how his later projects of Negative Dialectics and Aesthetic Theory seek to protect the subject from these trends and then reflect on how Adorno's ideas can be brought together with Lukács' later ideas about social ontology in order to glimpse a broader concept of Critical Theory. (shrink)

In criminal trials, evidence often involves a degree of uncertainty and decision-making includes moving from the initial presumption of innocence to inference about guilt based on that evidence. The jurors’ ability to combine evidence and make accurate intuitive probabilistic judgments underpins this process. Previous research has shown that errors in probabilistic reasoning can be explained by a misalignment of the evidence presented with the intuitive causal models that people construct. This has been explored in abstract and context-free situations. However, less (...) is known about how people interpret evidence in context-rich situations such as legal cases. The present study examined participants’ intuitive probabilistic reasoning in legal contexts and assessed how people’s causal models underlie the process of belief updating in the light of new evidence. The study assessed whether participants update beliefs in line with Bayesian norms and if errors in belief updating can be explained by the causal structures underpinning the evidence integration process. The study was based on a recent case in England where a couple was accused of intentionally harming their baby but was eventually exonerated because the child’s symptoms were found to be caused by a rare blood disorder. Participants were presented with a range of evidence, one piece at a time, including physical evidence and reports from experts. Participants made probability judgments about the abuse and disorder as causes of the child’s symptoms. Subjective probability judgments were compared against Bayesian norms. The causal models constructed by participants were also elicited. Results showed that overall participants revised their beliefs appropriately in the right direction based on evidence. However, this revision was done without exact Bayesian computation and errors were observed in estimating the weight of evidence. Errors in probabilistic judgments were partly accounted for, by differences in the causal models representing the evidence. Our findings suggest that understanding causal models that guide people’s judgments may help shed light on errors made in evidence integration and potentially identify ways to address accuracy in judgment. (shrink)

Historical scholarship often relies on intermittent adjustments rather than radical innovation. Through a close reading of three different universal histories published between 1690 and 1760, this essay argues that the secularization of world history in the age of Enlightenment was an incomplete and often unintended process. Nonetheless, one of the most significant changes in this period was the centering of universal history in Europe, a process that accompanied the desacralization of the story of man. Once human progress was embraced as (...) a universal process, the story of the development of the arts and sciences gradually eclipsed the non-European cultures that had formerly played a central role in the Christian narrative of human history. (shrink)

The enduring popularity of Star Wars has much to do with its mythic dimensions. However, there are problems with Joseph Campbell's work on myth and George Lucas's use of Campbell's ideas in Star Wars. Both Campbell and Lucas promote a simplistic view that encourages fans to avoid some darker, more unsettling ideas in Star Wars, which may obscure myth's true power. Campbell remains one of the most famous mythologists, but he was by no means the first. Campbell's influence on Star (...) Wars seems obvious, but the details are difficult to determine, partly because Lucas himself gives different accounts of it. Campbell's monomyth leads us to see similarities between tales and, in so doing, overlooks many significant differences. Tensions between mythos and logos date back to ancient Greek philosophers, if not earlier. The mythic structure of Star Wars has immense hidden power, and this power has a dark side. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Yoga's Approach to the Core Self Clinical Psychology and Treatment How Yoga can Help Neuroscience and You Getting Stronger, Getting Smarter Instructor Responsibility Possibilities for Therapy.

Three experiments demonstrate that biological movement facilitates young infants’ recognition of the whole human form. A body discrimination task was used in which 6-, 9-, and 12-month-old infants were habituated to typical human bodies and then shown scrambled human bodies at the test. Recovery of interest to the scrambled bodies was observed in 9- and 12-month-old infants in Experiment 1, but only when the body images were animated to move in a biologically possible way. In Experiment 2, nonbiological movement was (...) incorporated into the typical and scrambled body images, but this did not facilitate body recognition in 9- and 12-month-olds. A preferential looking paradigm was used in Experiment 3 to determine if infants had a spontaneous preference for the scrambled versus typical body stimuli when these were both animated. The results showed that 12-month-olds preferred the scrambled body stimuli, 9-month-olds preferred the typical body stimuli and the 6-month-olds showed no preference for either type of body stimuli. These findings suggest that human body recognition involves integrating form and movement, possibly in the superior temporal sulcus, from as early as 9 months of life. (shrink)