If there is a constitutional right to R, and a law L by its terms prohibits R,L cannot be validly applied to some person P’s exercise of R. For at least two reasons, however, most cases involving claims of constitutional right are substantially more difficult than this schematic example. First, lawmakers rarely act so brashly as to proscribe rights in so many words. 1 Second, even facially invalid laws typically include within their sweep much unprotected activity. 2.

Prior to recent decades, the United States Supreme Court often invoked the political question doctrine to avoid deciding controversial questions of individual rights. 1 By the 1970s and 1980s, standing limits traced to Article IIIs arsenal of threshold decision making, 3 in the last decade the Court has turned with increasing frequency to the distinction between facial and as-applied challenges to perform the gatekeeping function. However, although there is a considerable body of scholarship concerning the conventional justiciability doctrines, scholars have (...) only recently begun to address the range of questions implicated by the Courtand they have generally focused on narrow doctrinal questions about the proper treatment of discrete rights such as abortion, free exercise of religion, and freedom of speech. The papers in this issue of LegalTheory and the next view these issues in a broader jurisprudential context. (shrink)

El problema de la no identidad genera el interrogante de si un acto que es necesario para que una persona llegue a existir puede a la vez dañarla. Por ejemplo, de acuerdo con la lógica de la no identidad, los descendientes de las víctimas de injusticias históricas como la esclavitud y el Holocausto no pueden quejarse de esas injusticias porque esos terribles eventos hicieron posible su propia existencia. Si una persona tiene una vida que vale la pena, entonces las injusticias (...) pasadas pero necesarias para que llegase a existir no podrían haberla dañado. Este artículo ofrece soluciones novedosas a ese razonamiento contraintuitivo que produce el problema de la no identidad al reposicionarlo en un nuevo escenario: la cuestión de la ganadería. De acuerdo con la lógica de la no identidad, el matadero beneficia a los animales condenados a la muerte porque esa es su razón de existir. Este artículo responde al problema de la no identidad proponiendo principalmente una asimetría entre no crear un ser vivo y dañar un ser vivo, esto es, construyendo una versión moralizada del efecto de la dotación. La consideración del problema de la no identidad en el contexto animal revela una base común entre el razonamiento moral respecto de las obligaciones humanas intra e interespecies. (shrink)

BioPortal is a Web portal that provides access to a library of biomedical ontologies and terminologies developed in OWL, RDF(S), OBO format, Protégé frames, and Rich Release Format. BioPortal functionality, driven by a service-oriented architecture, includes the ability to browse, search and visualize ontologies (Figure 1). The Web interface also facilitates community-based participation in the evaluation and evolution of ontology content.

In this book, law professors Sherry F. Colb and Michael C. Dorf argue that: -/- many non-human animals, at least vertebrates, are morally considerable and prima facie wrong to harm because they are sentient, i.e., conscious and capable of experiencing pains and pleasures; most aborted human fetuses are not sentient -- their brains and nervous systems are not yet developed enough for sentience -- and so the motivating moral concern for animals doesn't apply to most abortions[2]; later abortions (...) affecting sentient fetuses, while rare, raise serious moral concerns, but these abortions -- like all abortions -- invariably involve the interests and rights of the pregnant woman, which can make these abortions morally permissible. For a book claiming to explore the "connections" between debates about the two issues, just the summary from the book flap -- basically, what's above -- makes it appear that there really isn't much connection between the topics, at least at the core ethical level. Animals are sentient, early fetuses are not, and so the moral arguments about the two issues don't overlap or share premises. While the authors hope to use insights from one issue to shed light on the other, I find that differences in the issues limit these insights. (shrink)

Michael Dorf and Charles Sabel invoke John Dewey’s “pragmatist account of thought and action” as the “backdrop” for their theory of democratic experimentalism, an approach to governance emphasizing judicially monitored local decision making within a system of decentralized administrative authority. Little credit for influence is given to the Austrian economist Friedrich Hayek and his classic liberal ideas. Indeed, Sabel has been highly critical of Hayek’s ideas. Yet, an argument can be made that (i) democratic experimentalism is at least (...) loosely Hayekian and (ii) a combined Deweyan-Hayekian analysis of Dorf and Sabel’s theory reveals some critical mistakes. One implication of my analysis is that Dewey and Hayek’s ideas are more compatible than most democratic theorists and political philosophers will admit. Evidence of this compatibility opens the door for creating and evaluating democratic experiments within a Deweyan-Hayekian theoretical framework, as well as extending the framework to other areas of political inquiry. (shrink)

author. University Professor in the School of Law, Columbia University. (From July 2006, Professor of Law, New York University.) Earlier versions of this Essay were presented at the Colloquium in Legal and Social Philosophy at University College London, at a law faculty workshop at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and at a constitutional law conference at Harvard Law School. I am particularly grateful to Ronald Dworkin, Ruth Gavison, and Seana Shiffrin for their formal comments on those occasions and also to (...) James Allan, Aharon Barak, Richard Bellamy, Aileen Cavanagh, Arthur Chaskalson, Michael Dorf, Richard Fallon, Charles Fried, Andrew Geddis, Stephen Guest, Ian Haney-Lopez, Alon Harel, David Heyd, Sam Issacharoff, Elena Kagan, Kenneth Keith, Michael Klarman, John Manning, Andrei Marmor, Frank Michelman, Henry Monaghan, Véronique Munoz-Dardé, John Morley, Matthew Palmer, Richard Pildes, Joseph Raz, Carol Sanger, David Wiggins, and Jo Wolff for their suggestions and criticisms. Hundreds of others have argued with me about this issue over the years: This Essay is dedicated to all of them, collegially and with thanks. (shrink)

Contemporary "flexible capitalism" requires novel forms of legal regulation. In this vein, Joshua Cohen, Michael Dorf, Archon Fung, and Charles Sabel have developed a provocative set of proposals for a new mode of regulatory law, what they describe as "democratic experimentalism" or, alternately, "directly deliberative polyarchy." Their proposal are criticized: they not only fail to take traditional liberal democratic rule of law virtues seriously enough, but it remains unclear whether they can effectively tame and humanize capitalism. Instead, some (...) evidence suggests that their proposals simply amount to a normatively problematic synchronization of the legal system with contemporary high-speed capitalism. (shrink)

Alles entwickelt sich: der Kosmos mit seinen Strukturen, das Leben auf der Erde und die atemberaubend kreative Intelligenz (auch die künstliche) sowie unser Verständnis von alledem. Dieses Buch ist der menschlichen und nichtmenschlichen Natur auf der Spur. Es handelt von Grundsatzfragen der Erkenntnis- und Wissenschaftstheorie, von Präzisierungen der modernen Naturphilosophie und von vielen weiteren Facetten humanistischer Kultur. Leitidee ist die Einheit des Wissens im Lichte der Evolution. -/- Gerhard Vollmer zählt mit seinen Publikationen (die meisten im Hirzel-Verlag!) zur Erkenntnis- und (...) Wissenschaftstheorie, Naturphilosophie und Metaphysik und über ein evolutionäres, naturalistisches Weltbild zu den bedeutendsten Philosophen der letzten 50 Jahre im deutschsprachigen Raum. Viel beigetragen hat er auch zum interdisziplinären Diskurs und zur Wissenschaftskommunikation – von seinem akademischen Wirken ganz zu schweigen. -/- Autoren und Themen: -/- "Evolutionäre Erkenntnistheorie bei Schopenhauer - eine Spurensuche" - Prof. Dr. Dieter Birnbacher ist emeritierter Professor für Philosophie an der Universität Düsseldorf. Vizepräsident der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Humanes Sterben sowie der Schopenhauer-Gesellschaft, Mitglied der Leopoldina. -/- "Das Realismusproblem in der Evolutionären Erkenntinstheorie" - Florian Chefai ist Direktoriumsmitglied und wissenschaftlicher Koordinator des Hans-Albert-Instituts. Studium der Philosophie und Soziologie in Trier. Seit 2020 Referent für Presse- und Öffentlichkeitsarbeit bei der Giordano-Bruno-Stiftung. -/- "Evolution und Politik - oder: Wie man Türen öffnet" - Dr. Gerhard Engel ist Philosoph und Evolutionärer Humanist. 1988 Promotion im Fach Wissenschaftslehre bei Hans Albert, danach Lehrtätigkeit in Braunschweig, Mainz und Nordhausen. 2009 bis 2017 war er Präsident der Humanistischen Akademie Bayern. -/- "Auf der Suche nach der Objektivität" - Helmut Fink ist Theoretischer Physiker und Referent für Wissenschaft und Philosophie bei Kortizes – Institut für populärwissenschaftlichen Diskurs in Nürnberg. Seit 2013 Vorstandsmitglied der Heisenberg-Gesellschaft, seit 2017 Vorsitzender der Ludwig-Feuerbach-Gesellschaft. -/- "Materie und Emergenz - ein wirkungsvolles Duo" - Prof. Dr. Ernst Peter Fischer ist Wissenschaftshistoriker und -publizist. 1977 Promotion in Biologie bei Max Delbrück, 1987 Habilitation in Wissenschaftsgeschichte, danach Lehrtätigkeit in Konstanz und Heidelberg. -/- "Die Evolution als Ideengeber für eine Systematische Kreativität" - PD Dr. Dr. Ulrich Frey ist Philosoph und Ökologe. 2006 Promotion in Philosophie bei Gerhard Vollmer, 2016 Promotion zum Dr. rer. nat. bei Eckart Voland, 2017 Habilitation in Ökologie in Gießen. Forscher am Deutschen Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt in Stuttgart. -/- "Die Dynamik der Ignoranz in den Wissenschaften" - Prof. Dr. Paul Hoyningen-Huene ist promovierter Theoretischer Physiker, pensionierter Professor für Theoretische Philosophie an der Leibniz Universität Hannover und Lehrbeauftragter für Wirtschaftsphilosophie an der Universität Zürich. Mitglied der Leopoldina. "KI: Neues Denkzeug oder Evolutionssprung?" - Prof. Dr. Hartmut Kliemt ist emeritierter Professor für Philosophie und Ökonomik an der Frankfurt School of Finance and Management und Gastprofessor für Verhaltens- und Institutionenökonomik an der Universität Gießen. -/- "Warum manche Warum-Fragen immer wieder neu beantwortet werden" - Prof. Dr. Meinard Kuhlmann ist Wissenschaftsphilosoph im Philosophischen Seminar und im Studium Generale der Universität Mainz. 2012 bis 2021 Sprecher der Arbeitsgemeinschaft Philosophie der Physik der Deutschen Physikalischen Gesellschaft. -/- "Sind die sogenannten 'Critical Studies' Kandidaten für Pseudowissenschaften?" - Dr. Martin Mahner ist Biologe und Wissenschaftstheoretiker. Von 1999 bis 2024 leitete er das Zentrum für Wissenschaft und kritisches Denken der Gesellschaft zur wissenschaftlichen Untersuchung von Parawissenschaften (GWUP) in Roßdorf bei Darmstadt. -/- "Das Realismusproblem in der Evolutionären Erkenntnistheorie" - Dr. Jonas Pöld ist Direktoriumsmitglied des Hans-Albert-Instituts. Studium der Philosophie, Wissenschaftstheorie und Literaturwissenschaft in Berlin und Münster. 2024 Promotion in Philosophie in Münster. -/- "Im Lichte der Evolution: Kultur" - Dr. Dr. Hannes Rusch ist Verhaltensökonom. Promotionen 2014 in Biologie in Gießen und 2020 in Ökonomik in München. Seit 2023 Forschungsgruppenleiter am Max-Planck-Institut zur Erforschung von Kriminalität, Sicherheit und Recht in Freiburg. -/- "Nietzsche und die Wissenschaft des 19. Jahrhunderts" - Prof. Dr. Claus-Artur Scheier ist emeritierter Professor für Philosophie an der Technischen Universität Braunschweig. Arbeitsgebiete vor allem Metaphysik, Ästhetik und Deutscher Idealismus. Mitglied der Braunschweigischen Wissenschaftlichen Gesellschaft. -/- "Auf Epikurus Schultern - eine kurze Geschichte des Naturalismus" - Dr. Dr. h.c. Michael Schmidt-Salomon ist Philosoph, Schriftsteller und Vorstandssprecher der Giordano-Bruno-Stiftung für Humanismus und Aufklärung. 1997 Promotion zum Dr. phil. in Trier, 2019 Dr. h.c. der TU Liberec (Reichenberg). -/- "»Spiegel«-Leser wissen mehr – Reflexionen über Evolutionäre Erkenntnistheorie" - Prof. Dr. Volker Sommer ist Primatologe und Anthropologe. Seit 1996 Professor für Evolutionäre Anthropologie am University College London. Er erforscht Ökologie und Verhalten wild lebender Primaten in Afrika und Asien. -/- "Warum manche Warum-Fragen immer wieder neu beantwortet werden" - Prof. Dr. Manfred Stöckler ist Theoretischer Physiker und Philosoph. 1981 Promotion zum Dr. phil. in Gießen. 1991 bis 2017 Professor für Theoretische Philosophie mit dem Schwerpunkt Naturphilosophie und Philosophie der Naturwissenschaften an der Universität Bremen. -/- "Gerhard Vollmer als Philosophiedidaktiker – vom Lernen auf Vorrat, einer immer noch nötigen Fragekultur und dem Wert guter Beispiele" - Dr. Thomas Sukopp ist Akademischer Rat am Philosophischen Seminar, Arbeitsgemeinschaft Philosophiedidaktik, der Universität Siegen. 2006 Promotion in Philosophie bei Gerhard Vollmer, danach Lehrtätigkeit unter anderem in Braunschweig, Bamberg und Augsburg, seit 2012 in Siegen. -/- "Die Evolution des Kosmos - Zufall und Notwendigkeit im Multiversum" - Rüdiger Vaas ist Philosoph, Publizist, Astronomie- und Physikredakteur des Monatsmagazins bild der wissenschaft. Mitherausgeber mehrerer Buchreihen. Arbeitsgebiete vorwiegend Naturphilosophie und Wissenschaftstheorie der Grundlagenphysik und Kosmologie. -/- "Im Lichte der Evolution: Kultur" - Prof. Dr. Eckart Voland ist emeritierter Professor für Philosophie der Biowissenschaften an der Universität Gießen. Forschungen und Publikationen über Soziobiologie, zur historischen Demographie und evolutionären Anthropologie. -/- "Nikolaus Kopernikus - der missverstandene Astronom" - Prof. Dr. Franz Josef Wetz ist Philosoph und lehrte 1994 bis 2024 an der Pädagogischen Hochschule Schwäbisch Gmünd. 1981 bis 1993 wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter am Zentrum für Philosophie und Grundlagen der Wissenschaft der Universität Gießen. (shrink)

Concepts and Cases in Nursing Ethics is an introduction to contemporary ethical issues in health care, designed especially for Canadian audiences. The book is organized around six key concepts: beneficence, autonomy, truth-telling, confidentiality, justice, and integrity. Each of these concepts is explained and discussed with reference to professional and legal norms. The discussion is then supplemented by case studies that exemplify the relevant concepts and show how each applies in health care and nursing practice. This new fourth edition includes an (...) added chapter on end-of-life issues, and it is revised throughout to reflect the latest developments on topics such as global health ethics, cultural competence, social media, and palliative sedation. (shrink)

The redundant-signals paradigm (RSP) is designed to investigate response behavior in perceptual tasks in which response-relevant targets are defined by either one or two features, or modalities. The common finding is that responses are speeded for redundantly compared to singly defined targets. This redundant-signals effect (RSE) can be accounted for by race models if the response times do not violate the race model inequality (RMI). When there are violations of the RMI, race models are effectively excluded as a viable account (...) of the RSE. The common alternative is provided by co-activation accounts, which assume that redundant target signals are integrated at some processing stage. However, ‘co-activation’ has mostly been only indirectly inferred and the accounts have only rarely been explicitly modeled; if they were modeled, the RSE has typically been assumed to have a decisional locus. Yet, there are also indications in the literature that the RSE might originate, at least in part, at a non-decisional or motor stage. In the present study, using a distribution analysis of sequential-sampling models (ex-Wald and Ratcliff Diffusion model), the locus of the RSE was investigated for two bimodal (audio-visual) detection tasks that strongly violated the RMI, indicative of substantial co-activation. Three model variants assuming different loci of the RSE were fitted to the quantile reaction time proportions: a decision, a non-decision, and a combined variant both to vincentized group as well as individual data. The results suggest that for the two bimodal detection tasks, co-activation has a shared decisional and non-decisional locus. These findings point to the possibility that the mechanisms underlying the RSE depend on the specifics (task, stimulus, conditions, etc.) of the experimental paradigm. (shrink)

ZusammenfassungOb und inwieweit Menschenbilder in der Ethik eine Rolle spielen (sollen), ist hoch umstritten - auch deswegen, weil das Verhältnis zwischen Ethik und Menschenbild ziemlich unklar ist. Der vorliegende Beitrag versucht, dieses Verhältnis zu klären und darzulegen, dass die Rede vom Menschenbild in der Ethik an mehreren Stellen relevant und sinnvoll ist. Zu diesem Zweck wird erstens der Begriff des Menschenbildes definiert und einige verbreitete Missverständnisse ausgeräumt. Zweitens werden drei in der Ethik verbreitete Modelle der Beziehung zwischen Ethik und Menschenbild (...) vorgestellt und ihre Schwierigkeiten untersucht: das (traditionelle) Telos-Modell, das (neuzeitliche) Human-nature-Modell und das (moderne) reduzierte Vernunft- Modell. Anhand einer ausführlichen Kritik des dritten Modells, das modernen Ethikansätzen zugrunde liegt, zeigt der Beitrag drittens schließlich auf, dass eine Ethik dann, wenn sie konkrete Urteile und materiale Normen begründen will, nicht umhin kommt, explizit oder implizit von gehaltvollen Menschenbildern auszugehen. (shrink)

Integral Ecology uses multiple perspectives to analyze environmental problems. Four of Integral Ecology's major analytical perspectives (known as the quadrants) correspond to the four divisions of the liberal arts and sciences: fine arts, natural science, social science, and humanities. Integral Ecology also utilizes the analytical perspective provided by the idea of cultural moral development. This perspective helps to reveal how stakeholders at different developmental stages disclose a phenomenon, in this case, a tropical forest that loggers propose to clear-cut. Integral Ecology (...) takes into account all pertinent perspectives, in order to arrive at the best possible solution to environmental problems and conflicts. (shrink)

Analyses are given of the concepts of absolute and prima facie obligation. The former is a maximizing analysis: roughly, one ought absolutely to perform those actions which are performed in the best worlds accessible to one. The latter analysis is roughly this: one ought prima facie to perform those actions which are such that those accessible worlds in which they are performed are better than the closest accessible worlds in which they are not performed. Accounts of conditional obligation, both absolute (...) and prima facie, are also given, and the issue of the detachment of unconditional from conditional obligation is addressed. (shrink)

As libraries begin to embrace Web 2.0 technologies to serve patrons—ushering in the era of Library 2.0—unique dilemmas arise in the realm of information ethics, especially regarding patron privacy. The norms of Web 2.0 promote the open sharing of information—often personal information—and the design of many Library 2.0 services capitalize on access to patron information and might require additional tracking, collection, and aggregation of patron activities. Thus, embracing Library 2.0 potentially threatens the traditional ethics of librarianship, where protecting patron privacy (...) and intellectual freedom has been held paramount. The question is not whether libraries will move toward Library 2.0, but how they will do it, and whether they can preserve the contextual integrity of patron privacy and maintain their professional librarian ethic, while also providing enhanced services to their patrons. This article will provide an ethical examination of the emergence of new Library 2.0 tools and technologies in relation to existing ethical norms of information flow within the library context. By doing so, librarians and information professionals will be better situated to avoid—or at least renegotiate—the impending Faustian bargain regarding patron privacy in the "2.0" era. (shrink)

The essays in this volume are all concerned with the arguments about law as a system of rule-based decision-making,particularly the ideas advanced by legal philosopher Frederick Schauer. Schauer's work has not only helped revive interest in legal formalism but has also helped relocate arguments about the relationship between posited rules and morality. The contributors to this volume, themselves distinguished theorists, have concentrated on three aspects of Schauer's work: the nature of jurisprudential description; his theory of presumptive positivism; and the application (...) of his theory of rule-based decision-making to other areas of legal and moral thought. Contributors: Larry Alexander, Brian Bix, Philip Bobbitt, Marianne Constable, Michael C. Dorf, Jeremy Elkins, Claire Oakes Finkelstein, Leo Katz, Jason Johnston, Dennis Patterson. (shrink)

Because I don’t know what a cultural imaginary is, nor how to put (or find) something in one, I propose instead to provide a brief, general account of what, when we think and write about, and thereby determine, the characteristics of mindedness, the members of my tribe imagine themselves to be doing.

I argue that Anselmians ought to abandon traditional Anselmianism in favor of Moderate Anselmianism. Moderate Anselmianism advances the view that a being x = God iff for every essential property P of x, it is secondarily necessary that x has P, for most essential properties of x, it is not primarily necessary that x has P and the essential properties of x include omnipotence, omniscience, perfect goodness and necessary existence. Traditional Anselmians have no cogent response to most a priori atheological (...) arguments. But a priori atheological arguments present no serious problem for moderate Anselmians. Unlike traditional Anselmianism, Moderate Anselmianism explains why a priori atheological arguments can be convincing and nonetheless illusory. (shrink)

An interview with the American Philosophical Association regarding my work as an academic.

A Byzantine Government in Exile Government and Society under the Laskarids of Nicaea.

Martin O'Shaughnessy _Jean Renoir_ Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 2000 ISBN 0719050626 hb; 0719050634 pb 251 pp.

Relates Eastern concepts to Western religion, art, and modern science, and suggests their relevance to the reader.