How are causal judgements such as 'The ice on the road caused the traffic accident' connected with counterfactual judgements such as 'If there had not been any ice on the road, the traffic accident would not have happened'? This volume throws new light on this question by uniting, for the first time, psychological and philosophical approaches to causation and counterfactuals. Traditionally, philosophers have primarily been interested in connections between causal and counterfactual claims on the level of meaning or truth-conditions. More (...) recently, however, they have also increasingly turned their attention to psychological connections between causal and counterfactual understanding or reasoning. At the same time, there has been a surge in interest in empirical work on causal and counterfactual cognition amongst developmental, cognitive, and social psychologists--much of it inspired by work in philosophy. In this volume, twelve original contributions from leading philosophers and psychologists explore in detail what bearing empirical findings might have on philosophical concerns about counterfactuals and causation, and how, in turn, work in philosophy might help clarify the issues at stake in empirical work on the cognitive underpinnings of, and relationships between, causal and counterfactual thought. (shrink)

Our purpose in this article is to draw attention to a connection that obtains between two dilemmas from two separate spheres: sports and the law. It is our contention that umpires in the game of cricket may face a dilemma that is similar to a dilemma confronted by legal decision makers and that comparing the nature of the dilemmas, and the arguments advanced to solve them, will serve to advance our understanding of both the law and games.

Epigenetic and transcriptional variability contribute to the vast diversity of cellular and organismal phenotypes and are key in human health and disease. In this review, we describe different types, sources, and determinants of epigenetic and transcriptional variability, enabling cells and organisms to adapt and evolve to a changing environment. We highlight the latest research and hypotheses on how chromatin structure and the epigenome influence gene expression variability. Further, we provide an overview of challenges in the analysis of biological variability. An (...) improved understanding of the molecular mechanisms underlying epigenetic and transcriptional variability, at both the intra- and inter-individual level, provides great opportunity for disease prevention, better therapeutic approaches, and personalized medicine. Epigenetic and transcriptional variability mediate phenotypic plasticity, enabling adaptation to changing environments. In this review, we describe the sources of inter- and intra-individual variability and discuss epigenetic regulators of gene expression variability, including DNA methylation and chromatin structure. Understanding these molecular mechanisms will improve therapeutic approaches and personalized medicine. (shrink)

This paper addresses the somewhat neglected topic of envy and its relationship to education and social inequality in Britain. Drawing on the work of Rawls, Runciman and Crosland, the paper proposes a distinction between envy as a vice and 'justified resentment' aroused by perceived injustices in the social distribution of primary goods, including education. Various pejorative uses of the term 'the politics of envy' in UK politics are examined. The conditions necessary for a politics of justified resentment are then analysed. (...) Current developments in higher education in the UK are discussed with reference to signs of the emergence of new social resentments among the relatively highly educated. Prospects for a wider politics of justified resentment are assessed in relation to a range of emergent policies and priorities of New Labour in government. (shrink)

Most readers of Habermas would not classify him as an existential thinker. The view of Habermas as a philosopher in German Idealist and Critical traditions from Kant to Hegel and Marx to the Frankfurt School prevails among Continental as much as among analytic philosophers. And the mainstream Anglo-American reception of his work and politics is shaped by the approaches of formal analysis rather than those of existential and social phenomenology or even current American pragmatism. One may argue that both these (...) readings eclipse richer existential dimensions of a thinker who challenges the notorious methodological and political splits among analytic, Continental and pragmatist orientations. I argue that Habermas’ critical relation to Heidegger’s a historical history of Being and his misguided political career cannot explain a competing narrative of his own affirmative appropriation of existential-ethical dimensions of thought and activism. Second, if one sets in the foreground this competing narrative, there emerges a weak thesis, whether or not a plausible complementarity between the communications critical social theory and concrete existential categories can be established. Third, one may inquire further into a stronger thesis whether or not this link must be developed in order to render Habermas’ own theory of a communicatively competent self sufficiently concrete and critical. (shrink)

His Paulskirche speech on October 14, 2001, marked Habermas’s turn to public criticism of the unilateral politics of global hegemony as he promoted a globaldomestic and human rights policy. Two years later he joined ranks with Jacques Derrida against the eight “new” Europeans who lent signatures to the second Gulf War. Lest we misjudge the joint letter by Habermas and Derrida as peculiarly Eurocentric and even oblivious to the worldwide nature of the antiwar protest on February 15, 2003, we must (...) read their new alliance in the context of its emergence: Derrida and Habermas introduce a corrective that neither invokes the geographical heart of Europe nor the cosmopolitan westernization of the world. In this essay, first, I revisit the imaginary conversation between Habermas and Derrida from 1995. Second, I highlight the persisting differences in their post-2001 thinking, pairing up key political concepts that illustrate how each thinker hopes for that which is to come after the death of God. Third, I press ahead to a new critical theory that articulates postsecular hope after the death of God. (shrink)

Two questions were addressed to my existential biography of Habermas: Is my use of existential categories to discuss his theorycompatible with his recovery of the publicity of facts and norms? Can I concede a secular reading of anamnestic solidarity to Habermas and retain this conception to sustain a Benjaminian-Kierkegaardian openness of history? The best answer would be to reprint Habermas’s astonishing autobiography from Kyoto (his thank you speech on the occasion of the Koyto Award on 11 November 2004). The second (...) best is first to situate it and then take up the two questions in light of his self-presentation. (shrink)

This chapter examines Merold Westphal's critique on the works of Calvin Schrag about the relationship of philosophy and a theistic belief in God. It talks about why neither devils speak as atheist nor god as theist. It reveals that God refuses to appear on philosophy's terms because in God's transcendence, God would appear more otherwise than Being. Also, theism does not explain why the divine “otherwise” ultimately signifies that a personally loving Creator and Redeemer in loving unconditionally always already love (...) also impersonally. (shrink)

As one tries to grasp love and its images within José Leonilson's production, a multiplicity of aspects and meanings are seen that also relate to Louise Bourgeois's oeuvre in regard to the interest in human relations. Through a comparative approach to both artists' poetics, an understanding is created that love is not a simplistic action and all the words read in or applied to their visual discourse must be considered within a wide range of love in visual and literary images. (...) Keywords: literature and visual arts / love / creativity / Bourgeois, Louise / Leonilson, José / word and image. (shrink)

Thomas Flynn's work on Sartre and Foucault, the first of a two-volume project, offers a unique opportunity for examining an existential theory of history. It occasions rethinking existential-social categories from the vantage point of the poststructuralist turn. And it contributes to developing existential variants of critical theory. The following questions guide me in each of the three above areas. First, how is human history intelligible, given not only our finite sense of ourselves but also claims that we have reached the (...) end of history? Second, with the poststructuralist eclipse of dialectics, can we render existential categories in social terms and vice versa? Third, critics decry grand theorizing even in fallibilist reason, e.g., of Habermas, while others are worried by the normative deficits of poststructuralist nominalism, e.g., of Foucault. Can existential variants of critical social theory, anticipated before Sartre by Marcuse, split the difference? (shrink)

Friis and Crease illustrate the diversity of content and styles in postphenomenology, a burgeoning field that has attracted attention among scholars engaged in technology studies. Contributors to this edited collection seek to analyze, clarify, and develop postphenomenological language and concepts, expand the work of Don Ihde, the field's founder, and delve into areas that Ihde never tackled.

The current U.S. health care system, with both rising costs and demands, is unsustainable. The combination of a sense of individual entitlement to health care and limited acceptance of individual responsibility with respect to personal health has contributed to a system which overspends and underperforms. This sense of entitlement has its roots in a perceived right to health care. Beginning with the so-called moral right to health care, the issue of who provides health care has evolved as individual rights have (...) trumped societal rights. The concept of government providing some level of health care ranges from limited government intervention, a ‘negative right to health care’, to various forms of a ‘positive right to health care’. The latter ranges from a decent minimum level of care to the best possible health care with access for all. We clarify the concept of legal rights as an entitlement to health care and present distributive and social justice counter arguments to present health care as a privilege that can be provided/earned/altered/revoked by governments. We propose that unlike a ‘right’, which is unconditional, a ‘privilege’ has limitations. Going forward, expectations about what will be made available should be lowered while taking personal responsibility for one’s health must for elevated. To have access to health care in the future will mean some loss of personal rights and an increase in personal responsibility for gaining or maintaining one’s health. (shrink)

The aim of this study was to investigate the experiences of persons with severe functional disabilities who receive personal assistance in their homes, the focus being on their daily life in relation to the ethical principles represented in the Swedish Disability Act: autonomy, integrity, influence and participation. Qualitative interviews were performed with 26 persons and thereafter subjected to qualitative latent content analysis. The experiences of personal assistance were very much in accordance with the said principles, the most important factor being (...) that one is met with understanding. The participants described situations in which their integrity was violated in that they were not treated as competent adults. This indicates the importance of future efforts in nursing to support personal assistants with ethical knowledge and supervision so that they can empower people with disabilities and thereby enable them to maintain their self-esteem and dignity. (shrink)

Based on a modern reading of Aristotle’s theory of friendship, we argue that virtual friendship does not qualify as genuine friendship. By ‘virtual friendship’ we mean the type of friendship that exists on the internet, and seldom or never is combined with real life interaction. A ‘traditional friendship’ is, in contrast, the type of friendship that involves substantial real life interaction, and we claim that only this type can merit the label ‘genuine friendship’ and thus qualify as morally valuable. The (...) upshot of our discussion is that virtual friendship is what Aristotle might have described as a lower and less valuable form of social exchange. (shrink)

In this article we argue that the principle of need, on some interpretations, could be used to justify the spending of publically funded health care resources on cognitive enhancement and that this also holds true for individuals whose cognitive capacities are considered normal.The increased, and to an extent, novel demands that the modern technology and information society places on the cognitive capacities of agents, e.g., regarding good and responsible decision-making, have blurred the line between treatment and enhancement. More specifically, it (...) has shifted upwards. As a consequence, principles of need on their most reasonable interpretations can be used to support publically funded cognitive enhancement. At least this is so, if broader aims than curing and ameliorating diseases are included in the goals of health care. We suggest that it would be plausible to see health care as accepting such broader goals already today. (shrink)

The purpose of this study was to investigate what strategies people with severe functional disabilities who receive personal assistance in their homes use in their daily life to achieve autonomy, integrity, influence and participation. Qualitative interviews were carried out and subjected to qualitative latent content analysis. The main finding was expressed in terms of six subthemes: trying to keep a private sphere; striving to communicate; searching for possibilities; taking the initiative; striving to gain insight; and using one's temperament. These generated (...) the overall theme: maintaining dignity in close relationships. This study contributes an understanding of the strategies used by people who are dependent on personal assistance. Future efforts in nursing must focus on supporting personal assistants with ethical knowledge and guidance in order that people with severe functional disabilities are empowered to achieve autonomy, integrity, influence and participation in their daily lives. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: History of Technology Technology and Science Technology and Philosophy Technology and Environment Technology and Politics Technology and Ethics Technology and the Future.

This article explores the respective roles that medical and technological cognitive enhancements, on the one hand, and the moral and epistemic virtues traditionally understood, on the other, can play in enabling us to lead the good life. It will be shown that neither the virtues nor cognitive enhancements (of the kind we have access to today or in the foreseeable future) on their own are likely to enable most people to lead the good life. While the moral and epistemic virtues (...) quite plausibly are both necessary and sufficient for the good life in theory, virtue ethics is often criticised for being elitist and unachievable in practice for the vast majority. Some cognitive enhancements, on the other hand, might be necessary for the good life but are far from sufficient for such an existence. Here it will be proposed that a combination of virtue and some cognitive enhancements is preferable. (shrink)

The aim of this study was to compare Swedish and Chinese nurses' experiences of ethical dilemmas and workplace distress in order to deepen understanding of the challenges neuroscience nurses encounter in different cultures. Qualitative interviews from two previously performed empirical studies in Sweden and China were the basis of this comparative study. Four common content areas were identified in both studies: ethical dilemmas, workplace distress, quality of nursing and managing distress. The themes formulated within each content area were compared and (...) synthesized into novel constellations by means of aggregated concept analysis. Despite wide differences in the two health care systems, the nurse participants had similar experiences with regard to work stress and a demanding work situation. They were struggling with similar ethical dilemmas, which concerned seriously ill patients and the possibilities of providing good care. This indicates the importance of providing nurses with the tools to influence their own work situation and thereby reducing their work-related stress. (shrink)

This article discusses some aspects of animal ethics from an Aristotelian virtue ethics point of view. Because the notion of friendship (philia) is central to Aristotle’s ethical theory, the focus of the article is whether humans and animals can be friends. It is argued that new empirical findings in cognitive ethology indicate that animals actually do fulfill the Aristotelian condition for friendship based on mutual advantage. The practical ethical implications of these findings are discussed, and it is argued that eating (...) meat from free-living animals is more morally acceptable than eating cattle because hunters (unlike farmers) do not befriend their prey. (shrink)

This comprehensive history of German philosophy from its medieval beginnings to near the end of the eighteenth century explores the spirit of German intellectual life and its distinctiveness from that of other countries. Beck devotes whole chapters to four great philosophers -- Nicholas of Cusa, Leibniz, Lessing, and Kant -- and extensively examines many others, including Albertus Magnus, Meister Eckhart, Paracelsus, Kepler, Mendelssohn, Wolff, and Herder. Questioning explanations of philosophy by the racial or ethnic character of its exponents, (...) class='Hi'>Beck's conclusion is that German philosophy developed as a series of diverse responses to the historical experiences of the German people. The peculiarities of German philosophy must be viewed in the light of German political problems and educational structures. In particular he stresses the importance of the connections between philosophy and Germany's intellectual, literary, religious, and political history. (shrink)

The papers in this volume examine Kant's legacy by addressing issues concerning creativity in all aspects of human experience.

In this paper we discuss what we believe to be one of the most important features of near-future AIs, namely their capacity to behave in a friendly manner to humans. Our analysis of what it means for an AI to behave in a friendly manner does not presuppose that proper friendships between humans and AI systems could exist. That would require reciprocity, which is beyond the reach of near-future AI systems. Rather, we defend the claim that social AIs should be (...) programmed to behave in a manner that mimics a sufficient number of aspects of proper friendship. We call this “as-if friendship”. The main reason for why we believe that ‘as if friendship’ is an improvement on the current, highly submissive behavior displayed by AIs is the negative effects the latter can have on humans. We defend this view partly on virtue ethical grounds and we argue that the virtue-based approach to AI ethics outlined in this paper, which we call “virtue alignment”, is an improvement on the traditional “value alignment” approach. (shrink)

In this paper I will argue that medical specialists interpret and diagnose through technological mediations like X-ray and fMRI images, and by actualizing embodied skills tacitly they are determining the identity of objects in the perceptual field. The initial phase of human interpretation of visual objects takes place during the moments of visual perception before we are consciously aware of the perceived. What facilitate this innate ability to interpret are experiences, learning and training that become humanly embodied skills. These embodied (...) skills are actualized during the moments of visual perception. My argument is that biology, society and instruments constitute unique individual ontologies influencing specialist readings of the technological output, in other words, putting limits on the ‘‘truth-to-nature’’ relation, which is so much sought for in science. (shrink)

In this article, there is a suggestion that the application of certain key concepts or procedures of Husserlian phenomenology can be helpful in the practice of therapy. It is well known that how a therapist is present to a client and his or her story is critical for the success of therapy. What is less clear, however, is how to address this "way of being" in therapy and what kinds of interventions are helpful to clients. In addressing some of these (...) difficult issues, the Husserlian concepts found to be helpful are Husserl's chief directive to go "back to the matters themselves," the distinction among real and irreal objects, presence to the order of phenomena, the phenomenal realm, the intentional-fulfilling-identifying nature of conscious acts, the phenomenological-psychological reduction, and the discovery and description of eidetic structures of experience. These fundamental philosophical distinctions are taken up within a psychological perspective and elaborated and used within a phenomenological psychological perspective. (shrink)

For several decades, there have been increased requests to allow euthanasia in Sweden. The issue is a hot topic of debate among medical people, theologians, philosophers and parliamentarians. The authors in this book argue against the legalization of euthanasia.

This article challenges the common assumption that the character virtues can be divided into two groups, one consisting of other-regarding virtues and oneof self-regarding virtues. On such accounts the other-regarding virtues are often said to focus on advancing the good of others, whereas the self-regarding virtuesprimarily benefit the agent herself. Here, however, it will be shown that virtues like friendship, particular justice, even temper and benevolence—traditionally seen as other-regarding—all contain strong self-regarding aspects. The central claim of the article is that (...) these self-regarding aspects of the other-regarding virtues arenecessary components of complete virtue. Given the scope of these virtues, an agent has to act virtuously in her dealings with herself as well as with others inorder to qualify as fully virtuous. While this account draws on a number of Aristotelian ideas it should be noted that it is not intended as an authoritative, or exegetic, reading of Aristotle. (shrink)

In this paper we articulate confirmation and disconfirmation as components in human motivation. We develop a theory of motivation on the basis of a model of human action and we explore aspects of confirmation and disconfirmation in the context of the meeting of dysphagic patients with their physicians. We distinguish four central elements in confirmation and disconfirmation and use these and the relations between them for the purpose of constructing a typology. Finally, on the basis of the results obtained we (...) interpret a small volume of remarks reflecting the meaning field of some dysphagic patients in relation to their physicians. The underlying motive is to develop tools for understanding health care processes. The SAUC-Confirmation-Model and the theoretical framework in which it is embedded should be seen from that point of view. (shrink)