Advances in molecular biological research in the latter half of the twentieth century have made the story of the gene vastly complicated: the more we learn about genes, the less sure we are of what a gene really is. Knowledge about the structure and functioning of genes abounds, but the gene has also become curiously intangible. This collection of essays renews the question: what are genes? Philosophers, historians and working scientists re-evaluate the question in this volume, treating the gene as (...) a focal point of interdisciplinary and international research. It will be of interest to professionals and students in the philosophy and history of science, genetics and molecular biology. (shrink)

Normativität hat in den Sozialwissenschaften noch immer etwas Anrüchiges, fast Abschreckendes. Es gibt eine lange Traditionslinie in den Sozialwissenschaften, die versucht, ihre Disziplin gegenüber normativen Argumenten „sauber“ zu halten. Das wird in der Regel damit begründet, dass im wissenschaftlichen Erkenntnisprozess Gesinnungsmotive nicht hilfreich sind und im Extremfall Ergebnisse verzerren. Befürworter normativer Sozialwissenschaften halten dagegen, dass die fehlende Thematisierung etwa von sozialen Ungleichheits- und Herrschaftsverhältnissen die Welt, so wie sie gerade ist, einmal mehr bestätigt – und das ist eben auch nicht (...) normfrei und kann es auch nicht sein, weil, so eine zentrale These des vorliegenden Bandes, Theorien notwendig mit normativen Bezügen behaftet sind. Damit ist das Spektrum der Positionen angedeutet, die in diesem Sammelband zu finden sind. Er hat einerseits das Ziel, normative Verwicklungen auch in den sozialwissenschaftlichen Ansätzen aufzuspüren, die stärker auf die Idee einer wertfreien Wissenschaft verpflichtet sind. Andererseits werden Ansätze, die explizit herrschaftskritische Positionen vertreten, auf die Plausibilität ihrer normativen Setzungen hin überprüft. Die normativen Hintergründe sozialwissenschaftlicher Theoriebildung aufzuzeigen und eine Debatte über die normativen Bezüge der Sozialwissenschaften anzuregen ist das Anliegen dieses Bandes. (shrink)

Kyle Stanford has recently given substance to the problem of unconceived alternatives, which challenges the reliability of inference to the best explanation (IBE) in remote domains of nature. Conjoined with the view that IBE is the central inferential tool at our disposal in investigating these domains, the problem of unconceived alternatives leads to scientific anti-realism. We argue that, at least within the biological community, scientists are now and have long been aware of the dangers of IBE. We re-analyze the nineteenth-century (...) study of inheritance and development (Stanford’s case study) and extend it into the twentieth century, focusing in particular on both classical Mendelian genetics and the studies by Avery et al. on the chemical nature of the hereditary substance. Our extended case studies show the preference of the biological community for a different methodological standard: the vera causa ideal, which requires that purported causes be shown on non-explanatory grounds to exist and be competent to produce their effects. On this basis, we defend a prospective realism about the biological sciences. (shrink)

Written for independent study and suitable for an introductory course in logic, this classic text combines a sound presentation of logic with effective pedagogy ...

This paper analyses J.S. Mill's theory on the relationships between individual autonomy and State powers. It will be argued that there is a significant discrepancy between Mill's general liberal statements aimed to secure individual largest possible autonomy and the specific examples which provide the government with quite wide latitude for interference in the public and private spheres. The paper outlines the boundaries of government interference in the Millian theory. Subsequently it describes Mill's elastic paternalism designed to prevent people from inflicting (...) harm upon others as well as upon themselves, from soft paternalism on issues like compulsory education to hard paternalism on very private matters such as marriage, having children, and divorce by consent. (shrink)

This paper reflects on the articles submitted for the Symposium Confronting the Internet’s Dark Side. I discuss some of the criticisms of the book’s theory and my treatment of hate speech. The responsibilities of Internet Service Providers and Web-Hosting Services are in the fore, arguing that as they are the gatekeepers, they need to be proactive far more than they are now. This paper, like my book, strives to suggest an approach that harnesses the strengths and capabilities of the public (...) and the private sectors in offering practical solutions to pressing problems. (shrink)

In Memory of Ed PellegrinoEuthanasia in Belgium is not limited to terminally ill patients. It may be applied to patients with chronic degenerative diseases. Currently, people in Belgium wish to make it possible to euthanize incompetent patients who suffer from dementia. This article explains the Belgian law and then explores arguments for and against euthanasia of patients with dementia. It probes the dementia paradox by elucidating Dworkin’s distinction between critical and experiential interests, arguing that at the end-of-life this distinction is (...) not clearcut. It argues against euthanasia for patients with dementia, for respecting patients’ humanity and for providing them with more care, compassion, and good doctoring. (shrink)

Philosophers use historical case studies to support wide-ranging claims about science. This practice is often criticized as problematic. In this paper we suggest that the function of case studies can be understood and justified by analogy to a well-established practice in biology: the investigation of model organisms. We argue that inferences based on case studies are no more problematic than inferences from model organisms to larger classes of organisms in biology. We demonstrate our view in detail by reference to a (...) case study with a long history: Semmelweis’s discovery of the cause of childbed fever. (shrink)

Assume that water reduces to H2O. If so water is identical to H2O. At the same time, if water reduces to H2O then H2O does not reduce to water–the reduction relation is asymmetric. This generates a puzzle–if water just is H2O it is hard to see how we can account for the asymmetry of the reduction relation. The paper proposes a solution to this puzzle. It is argued that the reduction predicate generates intensional contexts and that in order to account (...) for the asymmetry, we should develop conditions on the meanings of expressions that flank the reduction predicate in true reduction statements. Finally, it is argued that if we adopt this interpretation, we can illuminate the epistemological difference between reduced and reducing item commonly referred to in the literature. (shrink)

The German Act on Autonomous Driving constitutes the first national framework on level four autonomous vehicles and has received attention from policy makers, AI ethics scholars and legal experts in autonomous driving. Owing to Germany’s role as a global hub for car manufacturing, the following paper sheds light on the act’s position within the ethical discourse and how it reconfigures the balance between legislation and ethical frameworks. Specifically, in this paper, we highlight areas that need to be more worked out (...) in the future either through ethical conventions, corporate measures or legal measures and examine how the law can be incorporated into the existing discourse on the regulation of technologies. Based on this examination, we derive implications for future discourse and elaborate on companies’ responsibilities in developing autonomous driving technologies in an ethical sense. (shrink)

Questions concerning the role of doctors, abortion, mercy killings and genetics are troubling and highly problematic. They require a thorough examination and careful probing. This volume takes a step towards tackling them. Its design is both interdisciplinary and comparative, offerin g philosophical, legal and medical perspectives of scholars from North America, Europe and Israel who analyze how their respective countries try to cope with and find answers for pressing concerns.

On July 12, 2006, the Hezbollah terrorist organization attacked two Israeli Defense Forces' armored Hummer jeeps patrolling along the border with gunfire and explosives, in the midst of massive shelling attacks on Israel's north. Three soldiers were killed in the attack and two were taken hostage. The Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) began heavy artillery and tank fire. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert convened the government on Wednesday night, June 12, 2006 to decide Israel's reaction. The government agreed that the attack had (...) created a completely new situation on the northern border, and that Israel must take steps that will "exact a price", and restore its deterrence. The Israeli-Hezbollah War had started after one rushed and short governmental meeting, without realizing the full implications of the decision. The war ended on August 14, 2006 when the UN Security Council Resolution (no. 1701) entered into force. During the war, voices of protest were heard in Israel, mainly from reserve service soldiers, journalists, and distinguished writers. After the war, thousands of people have criticized the government decisions, demanded the establishment of a national inquiry committee to investigate the war events and, called for the resignation of the war architects: Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Minister of Defence Amir Peretz, and Chief of Staff Dan Halutz. This article criticizes the establishment of the committee and the results it reached, arguing that it was a "sold game": The person under investigation should never be allowed to nominate his judges. This is mockery of justice, and travesty of social responsibility. (shrink)

As one of the world's most eminent living philosophers, John Perry has covered a remarkable breadth of subjects in his published work, including semantics, indexicality, self-knowledge, personal identity, and consciousness. Looking particularly at the way in which he deals with issues of self, communication, and reality, this volume is organized in seven chapters that highlight a different aspect of Perry's work on the intersection of these subjects. A fundamental work for students and scholars, Identity, Language, and Mind explores questions that (...) are not only essential in understanding Perry's writings, but also contemporary philosophy as a whole. (shrink)

This chapter considers eternity, duration, time, and their interrelations, and aims to resolve a paradox in Spinoza's theory of the mind's eternity. Spinoza's metaphysics of time includes an endless series of virtuous regresses. Spinoza characterizes duratio as a “magnitude. Spinoza says that duratio is “conceived as being greater or lesser, and as composed of parts”. Spinoza addresses time and its relation to duratio in the Metaphysical Thoughts. Spinoza accepts Suarez's view that “duratio and existence are only rationally distinct”. Spinoza holds, (...) with some of the Scholastic philosophers, that extrinsic denominations are mind‐made. Spinoza also uses geometrical construction as a model for thinking about the relationship between eternity and time. Spinoza seems, prima facie, to think that the mind cannot ever be eternal, but also can become eternal, and moreover already is eternal. (shrink)

(2013). Freedom of Expression v. Social Responsibility: Holocaust Denial in Canada. Journal of Mass Media Ethics: Vol. 28, No. 1, pp. 42-56. doi: 10.1080/08900523.2012.746119.

In this paper, the relation between identity-based reduction and one specific sort of reductive explanation is considered. The notion of identity-based reduction is spelled out and its role in the reduction debate is sketched. An argument offered by Jaegwon Kim, which is supposed to show that identity-based reduction and reductive explanation are incompatible, is critically examined. From the discussion of this argument, some important consequences about the notion of reduction are pointed out.

Flawed clinical practice guidelines may compromise patient care. Commercial conflicts of interest on panels that write treatment guidelines are particularly problematic, because panelists may have conflicting agendas that influence guideline recommendations. Historically, there has been no legal remedy for conflicts of interest on guidelines panels. However, in May 2008, the Attorney General of Connecticut concluded a ground-breaking antitrust investigation into the development of Lyme disease treatment guidelines by one of the largest medical societies in the United States, the Infectious Diseases (...) Society of America (IDSA). Although the investigation found significant flaws in the IDSA guidelines development process, the subsequent review of the guidelines mandated by the settlement was compromised by a lack of impartiality at various stages of the IDSA review process. This article will examine the interplay between the recent calls for guidelines reform, the ethical canons of medicine, and due process considerations under antitrust laws as they apply to the formulation of the IDSA Lyme disease treatment guidelines. The article will also discuss pitfalls in the implementation of the IDSA antitrust settlement that should be avoided in the future. (shrink)

This article provides an account of rent-seeking in relation both to economic policies and political practices in South Africa. The article draws attention to continuities and similarities in this regard between the two distinct periods of nationalist rule from 1948 to 1994 and from 1994 to 2012. The economic dimensions that are specifically addressed are industrial policy, the labour market, state administration and tenders and service delivery and welfare. The more specifically political dimensions addressed include the electoral system, the relationship (...) between constitutionalism and the judiciary, and the rule of law. The article highlights the dangers posed by excessive rent-seeking and especially its negative implications for redistribution, economic growth and the consolidation of democracy in a highly unequal society. (shrink)

Les spécialistes de l’archéologie des médias défendent une conception non-linéaire de l’histoire du cinéma, en analysant la façon dont les avancées technologiques et les dispositifs concrets contribuent activement à modifier nos modes de perception. Meurtre dans un jardin anglais de Peter Greenaway constitue un exemple remarquable de « métacinéma » mettant en pratique l’archéologie des médias dans le corps même du film, par le biais de citations visuelles renvoyant à d’autres médias ou d’autres pratiques artistiques, comme la peinture de la (...) Renaissance italienne ou la peinture hollandaise. Le présent essai offre donc une analyse détaillée de Meurtre dans un jardin anglais comme archéologie du cadre cinématique. Le cadre est pour Derrida « la structure décisive de l’enjeu » en ce qu’il renvoie au parergon, marquant ainsi les limites de l’œuvre d’art. Nous nous attacherons donc à décrire les différents types de cadrages appliqués aux nombreux médias présents ou « cités » dans le film : pellicules cinématographiques, écrans, dessins de paysages, miroirs plats ou convexes, tableaux, etc. Ces différents « cadrages » nous fourniront autant de clés de lecture pour comprendre les transformations que subit un médium artistique donné quand il est « re-présenté » par un autre. (shrink)

The north-east outskirts of the agora of Thasos III. 1 : the sculptures. The seventy fragments of sculpture – mostly carved on Thasos in the local marble – published here provide a representative selection of the finds made during excavations on the north-east outskirts of the agora of Thasos. Since a protobyzantine mansion has been built with materials taken from the ruins of the nearby agora, portraits-statues and offerings are the kinds of sculpture most represented. Except for a few better (...) preserved pieces, these fragments are of mainly archaeological interest, offering many insights into the techniques of ancient sculpture at different periods, especially regarding the initial stages of the sculptors’ work, indications as to the various tools used, the practice of piecing and repairs. (shrink)

Abstract The idea of ?election? cannot be approached, it seems, through traditional or classical philosophical conceptuality. This idea requires another type of discourse. Not simply because this idea refers to an entirely other body of texts, that of the Biblical tradition, but more radically since it commands another modality of thought which must at once suspend and pursue philosophical concepts to the point where they express themselves otherwise than according to the rationality of their own deployment. In truth, the idea (...) of ?election? calls thus for a redefinition of the rapport between singularity and universality, one no longer structured and circumscribed by ?truth?, but rather inspired by a novel and irreducible modality of ?justice?. A ?justice? which opens to the possibility for an ?ethics?, not as ?communicative dialogue?, ?mutual recognition? or a series of established and rationally grounded laws, but a ?place? of incessant and irresolute, non-intentional and unconditional exposition to the Other. (shrink)

The lexical–semantic organization of the mental lexicon is bound to change across the lifespan. Nevertheless, the effects of lexical–semantic factors on word processing are usually based on studies enrolling young adult cohorts. The current study aims to investigate to what extent age‐specific semantic organization predicts performance in referential word production over the lifespan, from school‐age children to older adults. In Study 1, we conducted a free semantic association task with participants from six age‐groups (ranging from 10 to 80 years old) (...) to compute measures that capture age‐specific properties of the mental lexicon across the lifespan. These measures relate to lifespan changes in the Available Richness of the mental lexicon and in the lexical–semantic Network Prototypicality of concrete words. In Study 2, we used the collected data to predict performance in a picture‐naming task on a new group of participants within the same age‐groups as for Study 1. The results show that age‐specific semantic Available Richness and Network Prototypicality affect word production speed while the semantic variables collected only in young adults do not. A richer and more prototypical semantic network across subjects from a given age‐group is associated with faster word production speed. The current results indicate that age‐specific semantic organization is crucial to predict lexical–semantic behaviors across the lifespan. Similarly, these results also provide cues to the understanding of the lexical–semantic properties of the mental lexicon and to lexical selection in referential tasks. (shrink)

Cet essai se penche sur un aspect méconnu de l’œuvre d’El Lissitzky : ses relations avec le cinéma. Il propose une analyse détaillée des deux salles d’exposition conçues entièrement par El Lissitzky, les Demonstrationsräume [Salles de démonstration] construites respectivement à Dresde (1926) et Hanovre (1927), fondée sur ses écrits théoriques du milieu des années 1920, ainsi que sur les notions de « cinéma élargi » et de « cinéma par d’autres moyens ». En soulignant l’importance de la matérialité du dispositif (...) cinématographique, cet essai décrit ces salles d’exposition modernistes comme des lieux d’expérimentation radicale visant à renégocier les relations entre les différents médias artistiques. (shrink)

In the late 1990s, the Internet seemed a perfect medium for business: a facilitator of unlimited economical propositions to people without any regulatory limitations. Cases such as that of Yahoo! mark the beginning of the end of that illusion. They demonstrate that Internet service providers (ISPs) have to respect domestic state legislation in order to avoid legal risks. Yahoo! was wrong to ignore French national laws and the plea to remove Nazi memorabilia from its auction site. Its legal struggle proved (...) futile and may have harmed its business. This essay argues for the adoption of standards of corporate social responsibility (CSR). CSR considerations may trump some forms of antisocial, highly offensive expression. (shrink)

– This paper aims to examine the present status of the research field intercultural information ethics including the foundational debate as well as specific issues., – A critical overview of the recent literature of the field is given., – The present IIE debate focuses on a narrow view of the field leaving aside comparative studies with non‐digital media as well as with other epochs and cultures. There is an emphasis on the question of privacy but other issues such as online (...) communities, governmentality, gender issues, mobile phones, health care and the digital divide are on the agenda., – The paper addresses basic issues of IIE that may open new vistas for research and practice in this field. (shrink)

The first aim is to provide well-articulated concepts by thinking through elementary phenomena of today s world, focusing on privacy and the digital, to clarify who we are in the cyberworld hence a phenomenology of digital whoness. The second aim is to engage critically, hermeneutically with older and current literature on privacy, including in today s emerging cyberworld. Phenomenological results include concepts of i) self-identity through interplay with the world, ii) personal privacy in contradistinction to the privacy of private property, (...) iii) the cyberworld as an artificial, digital dimension in order to discuss iv) what freedom in the cyberworld can mean, whilst not neglecting v) intercultural aspects and vi) the EU context.". (shrink)

This paper deals with intercultural aspects of privacy, particularly with regard to differences between Japanese and Western conceptions. It starts with a reconstruction of the genealogy of Western subjectivity and human dignity as the basic assumptions underlying Western views on privacy. An analysis of the Western concept of informational privacy is presented. The Japanese topic of ‘‘denial of self” (Musi) as well as the concepts of Seken, Shakai and Ikai (as analyzed by the authors of the companion piece on privacy (...) in Japan) give rise to intercultural comparisons. The paper addresses the question of privacy in cyberspace and mass media. Finally the question of freedom of speech is related to the Japanese concepts of Ohyake and Watakusi. (shrink)