Since approval of the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in 2016, it has been widely and repeatedly claimed that the GDPR will legally mandate a ‘right to explanation’ of all decisions made by automated or artificially intelligent algorithmic systems. This right to explanation is viewed as an ideal mechanism to enhance the accountability and transparency of automated decision-making. However, there are several reasons to doubt both the legal existence and the feasibility of such a right. In contrast to the (...) right to explanation of specific automated decisions claimed elsewhere, the GDPR only mandates that data subjects receive meaningful, but properly limited, information (Articles 13-15) about the logic involved, as well as the significance and the envisaged consequences of automated decision-making systems, what we term a ‘right to be informed’. Further, the ambiguity and limited scope of the ‘right not to be subject to automated decision-making’ contained in Article 22 (from which the alleged ‘right to explanation’ stems) raises questions over the protection actually afforded to data subjects. These problems show that the GDPR lacks precise language as well as explicit and well-defined rights and safeguards against automated decision-making, and therefore runs the risk of being toothless. We propose a number of legislative and policy steps that, if taken, may improve the transparency and accountability of automated decision-making when the GDPR comes into force in 2018. (shrink)

Discusses Armstrong's and Roman Ingarden's ontology, criticises substance ontology, and defends tropes and a field ontology.

Some argue for materialism claiming that a physical event cannot have a non-physical cause, or by claiming the 'Principle of Causal Closure' to be true. This I call a 'Sweeping Naturalistic Argument'. This article argues against this. It describes what it would be for a material event to have an immaterial cause.

To create fair and accountable AI and robotics, we need precise regulation and better methods to certify, explain, and audit inscrutable systems.

The argument from causal closure for physicalism requires the principle that a physical event can only occur through being necessitated by antecedent physical events. This article proposes a view of the causal structure of the world that claims not only that an event need not be necessitated by antecedent events, but that an event cannot be necessitated by antecedent events. All events are open to counteraction. In order to spell out various kinds of counteraction I introduce the idea of ‘directedness.’.

This article argues that agents can initiate causal processes.

Los milagros no violan las leyes naturales.

Nearly fifteen years after the Council of Europe first called for a pan‐European convention on issues in bioethics to harmonize disparate national regulations, in November 1996 the council's Committee of Ministers approved the Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine for formal adoption. The draft convention, released in July 1994, provoked strong public, professional, and governmental debate among European nations, particularly regarding provisions for biomedical research with subjects unable to give informed consent. If ratified, the “bioethics convention” will become the first (...) such document to have binding force internationally. (shrink)

The dilemma of free will is that if actions are caused deterministically, then they are not free, and if they are not caused deterministically then they are not free either because then they happen by chance and are not up to the agent. I propose a conception of free will that solves this dilemma. It can be called agent causation but it differs from what Chisholm and others have called so.

Analytic judgements are contingent and a posteriori.

This article introduces the notion of the directedness of a process, which underlies event causation as well as the persistence of things. Using this notion it investigates what happens in typical cases of active event causation. Causes never necessitate their effects because even non- probabilistic causes can be counteracted.

Although many philosophers today have turned away slightly from the linguistic turn, their methods, e.g. conceptual analysis, are still linguistic. These methods lead to false results. The right method in philosophy, like in other disciplines, is to try to perceive the object and to collect and weigh evidence. We must turn back to things in themselves.

Internal relations are nothing over and above the terms of the relation.

The problem of the nation is articulated as the philosophical problem of the relation between the political and the non-political in the context of modernity. When the political relevance of traditional non-political bonds is removed, a new cohesion needs to be found between free and equal individuals. Three solutions are possible. The liberal-universalistic solution claims that there is no other source of unity than the political process itself; it finds the ingredients of political loyalty in the common rational agreement upon (...) principles of democracy. The nationalistic solution is an attempt to find those ingredients in particularistic allegiances of a non-political, ethnic-cultural nature. Both solutions, present in the old French-German debate on the nation, as well as in recent debates between liberalism and communitarianism, are criticized. Their revival in recent times is explained by the fact that they both represent an erosion of the political sphere that is characteristic for a post-ideological society. The first neglects the specific determinateness of the political, reducing it to the internationality of the market or to the moralism of rights. The second neglects the political nature of democratic legitimation by founding it on the claim to embody a particular culture or „Volk”. — In a discussion with Sandel, it is agreed that the political dimension needs a determinate form of collective identity and a non-contractual form of foundation. This form should not be situated however in the imaginary givenness of an ethnic-cultural context, but in the common undertaking of the moral task of institutionalizing ideals of liberty. These ideals are not an abstract set of principles, but are necessarily mediated by a particular common heritage or a political culture. Finally it is shown that such interpretation of nation or national citizenship is parallel to recent philosophical endorsement of ideals of civic republicanism or constitutional patriotism. (shrink)

There is a general consensus that the concept of "absolute evil" was coined in order to account for the moral atrocities of the twentieth century. The connotations associated with such a concept are usually threefold: such an evil is not to be understood negatively as a privation of goodness, but as a positive force; such an evil can not be accommodated into any onto-theological order of being, but rather refers to the collapse of such an order; such an evil is (...) diabolical, motivated by the negation of moral law as such, and not by the pursuit of egoistic interests. Moreover, there is a general consensus that Kant's concept of "radical evil" is not radical enough to approximate to this excess of evil, specially since Kant categorically denies the possibility of devilishness. The purpose of this paper is to question this consensus. On the one hand, it is doubtful whether demonic interpretations can provide us with a deeper insight in the moral horrors of the twentieth century. They rather relieve us of our responsibilities, because they withdraw evil from our everyday experiences of weakness. On the other hand, it can be shown that Kant's idea of radical evil, notwithstanding his rejection of the demonic, is much more disturbing than is generally admitted: evil originates in an act of freedom, not in being overwhelmed by desire; the evil of hatred is already prefigurated in the banal evil of indifference; evil is enracinated in a "moral state of nature", where we can only develop our self-respect by continuously comparing ourselves with others, thus initiating ruthless forms of competition. The conclusion proposes to radicalize Kant's notion of evil, not in the direction of a demonic connotation, but in a direction indicated by Levinas: by referring to the experience of the victim. Only confronted with the suffering of others that is caused by me, my moral failure appears to be more than lack or privation: it is inherently excessive, since the victim experiences its own suffering as an intrinsic malignity that can not be accommodated into any order of being. (shrink)

It is generally accepted that bioethics is an interdisciplinary science. Why this is so and what it means is not always clear or agreed upon and, in this author's view, its implications are insufficiently researched. On the basis of involvement in projects which were labelled interdisciplinary, the author reflects upon the method of interdisciplinarity, especially its starting point. It is suggested that interdisciplinarity cannot thrive unless it curbs, from the very start, the inevitable reductions of all monodisciplinary approaches. This effort (...) is called methodical epochè, ideally the temporary suspension of all known methods. Its purpose is to achieve an interdisciplinary way of stating the question. Until then no breakdown of the global question by particular methods of single disciplines ought to be attempted. Realistic variations of this ideal are also discussed. CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

Some have tried to make miracles compatible with the laws of nature by re-defining them as something other than interventions. By contrast, this article argues that although miracles are divine interventions, they are not violations of the laws of nature. Miracles are also not exceptions to the laws, nor do the laws not apply to them. The laws never have exceptions; they never are violated or suspended, are probably necessary and unchangeable, and apply also to divine interventions. We need to (...) reconsider not miracles but laws. The main claim of this article is that laws of nature do not entail regularities, and therefore that miracles do not violate the laws. We need a new theory of the laws of nature: the tendency theory. (shrink)

Bei der Renaissance der philosophischen Auseinandersetzung mit Fragen über Gott spielte der Oxforder Philosoph Richard Swinburne eine wesentliche Rolle. Er kann als der bedeutendste zeitgenössische Vertreter der natürlichen Theologie gelten. Natürliche Theologie ist das Unternehmen, philosophisch zu untersuchen, ob es einen Gott gibt und wie er beschaffen ist. Dies ›philosophisch‹ und nicht theologisch zu untersuchen, heißt, direkte Offenbarung dabei nicht als Erkenntnisquelle zu verwenden.

The Nation as Philosophical ProblemThe problem of the nation is well articulated in a speech given in 1985 by then president of the Federal Republic of Germany, R. Von Weiszäcker:I belong to a people, the German people. What are the characteristics which we Germans share as a people? What does it mean to belong to such a people? What does the fact that I am German have to do with my identity as a person? Does this fact place a claim (...) on me? Does it mark me? Does it include responsibilities for me? Does it include obligations to me as a German, obligations which I would otherwise not have to fulfil? It is up to us to give content to the term ‘German,’ a content with which we ourselves and the world would like to live in peace.This is not a psychological comment. It is not about the deep-seated need of people to express feelings of collective identity. The question of the nation here is asked from a normative perspective. That will also be the starting point of this study. (shrink)

Chisholm's theory of agent causation is criticised. An alternative theory of agent causation is proposed.

After a general remark about Armstrong’s conception of ontology, I raise objections against this view and defend an alternative account of the connection between particulars and their properties, involving a kind of ontological dependence which is different from Armstrong’s necessary connection between particulars and their properties.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly relied upon by clinicians for making diagnostic and treatment decisions, playing an important role in imaging, diagnosis, risk analysis, lifestyle monitoring, and health information management. While research has identified biases in healthcare AI systems and proposed technical solutions to address these, we argue that effective solutions require human engagement. Furthermore, there is a lack of research on how to motivate the adoption of these solutions and promote investment in designing AI systems that align with values (...) such as transparency and fairness from the outset. Drawing on insights from psychological theories, we assert the need to understand the values that underlie decisions made by individuals involved in creating and deploying AI systems. We describe how this understanding can be leveraged to increase engagement with de-biasing and fairness-enhancing practices within the AI healthcare industry, ultimately leading to sustained behavioral change via autonomy-supportive communication strategies rooted in motivational and social psychology theories. In developing these pathways to engagement, we consider the norms and needs that govern the AI healthcare domain, and we evaluate incentives for maintaining the status quo against economic, legal, and social incentives for behavior change in line with transparency and fairness values. (shrink)

This article criticises Alvin Plantinga’s claim that ‘basic’ design beliefs, which arise without a conscious inference, have more positive epistemic status than non-basic ones and that we cannot evaluate the probabilities involved in inferential, inductive design arguments.

Trope ontology is exposed and confronted with the question where one trope ends and another begins. It is argued that tropes do not have determinate boundaries, it is arbitrary how tropes are carved up. An ontology, which I call field ontology, is proposed which takes this into account. The material world consists of a certain number of fields, each of which is extended over all of space. It is shown how field ontology can also tackle the problem of determin-able properties (...) and the problem of completeness of things. (shrink)

After a general remark about Armstrong’s conception of ontology, I raise objections against this view and defend an alternative account of the connection between particulars and their properties, involving a kind of ontological dependence which is different from Armstrong’s necessary connection between particulars and their properties.

Doch was das Spiel in der Ästhetik soll, so die These dieses Buches, klärt sich erst unter voller Berücksichtigung der praktizistischen Tendenz in Kants Ansatz.

The tendency theory of causation and its use in ontological engineering is described.