Name der Zeitschrift: Nietzscheforschung Jahrgang: 21 Heft: 1 Seiten: 362-366.

In this paper, I provide some evidence for the view that a common charge against those who adopt vegetarianism is that they would be sentimental. I argue that this charge is pressed frequently by those who adopt moral absolutism, a position that I reject, before exploring the question if vegetarianism might make sense. I discuss three concerns that might motivate those who adopt vegetarian diets, including a concern with the human health and environmental costs of some alternative diets, a concern (...) about inflicting pain on animals, and a concern with the killing of animals. While I argue that vegetarianism does not make sense in some situations, I hope that this paper shows that there are many good reasons why the adoption of vegetarian, and—even more so—vegan diets might be appropriate in some situations. In carving out this position, I focus primarily on the question whether a morally relevant distinction between the killing of plants and the killing of animals should be made. I engage primarily with the views of two of the most prominent authors on this issue, arguing that neither Peter Singer nor Tom Regan provide a satisfactory account on the ethics of killing nonhuman organisms. Two views are challenged in particular, the view that relatively simple animals such as molluscs, as well as plants, lack awareness, and the view that animals without a preference to continue living stand to lose little or nothing by being killed. I provide some evidence to support the claim that many share my view that it is more problematic to kill animals than to kill plants, before analyzing why some suppress the negative feelings they associate with killing animals. By exploring these issues I hope to shed some light on the issue of whether the feelings of those who adopt vegetarianism are sentimental or make sense, and to stimulate reflection amongst those with an interest in food ethics. (shrink)

This volume considers the numerous philosophical ideas and arguments found in and inspired by the critically acclaimed series Breaking Bad. This show garnered both critical and popular attention for its portrayal of a cancer-stricken, middle-aged, middle-class, high school chemistry teacher’s drift into the dark world of selling methamphetamine to support his family. Its characters, situations, and aesthetic raise serious and familiar philosophical issues, especially related to ethics and morality. The show provokes a bevy of rich questions and discussion points, such (...) as: What are the ethical issues surrounding drugs? What lessons about existentialism and fatalism does the show present? How does the show grapple with the concept of the end ‘justifying’ the means? Is Walt really free not to ‘break bad’? Can he be redeemed? What is the definition and nature of badness itself? Contributors address these and other questions as they dissect the legacy of the show and discuss its contributions to philosophical conversations. (shrink)

0 Introduction 0.1 Variation in nominal coreference Nominal coreference has received much interest in the field of text linguistics as an essential strategy ...

Migration is a key driver of economic and societal transformation, touching people’s lives worldwide. Understanding why people decide to migrate is crucial for fostering inclusive and diverse societies and informing effective policy-making. This paper focuses on economic migrants, a particular group of migrants whose study has primarily been confined to narrow areas of interest and characterized by inconsistent terminology, limiting cross-study comparability and the synthesis of findings. Viewed through the interdisciplinary lens and derived from theoretical, empirical, and analytical research outcomes, (...) the present paper concludes that economic migrants’ movements are influenced by the socio-demographic factors of ‘age’ and ‘education’ and are motivated by both the economic motives of ‘expected income’ and ‘employment’ and the economic-related motives of ‘corruption’, ‘amenities’, and ‘happiness’. These motives also reveal a typical profile of economic migrants: working-age, highly educated, predominantly male individuals who seek opportunities in developed countries to achieve a fulfilling life. The presented findings contribute to a better understanding of the dynamic decision-making process of economic migrants and offer valuable insights for policymakers to design more nuanced and targeted strategies for integrating migrants into societies. (shrink)

Serene Khaders Decolonizing Universalism präsentiert eine erhellende Theorie darüber, wie ein antiimperialer, transnationaler Feminismus heute verstanden werden sollte. Im Mittelpunkt ihrer Theorie steht eine Definition von Feminismus als Widerstand gegen sexistische Unterdrückung, welche sie als systematische Benachteiligung, die Frauen wegen ihres Frau-Seins erfahren, versteht. Allerdings begründet Khader nur sehr kursorisch, warum diese Definition von Unterdrückung am besten für einen antiimperialen, transnationalen Feminismus geeignet ist. Dieser Artikel argumentiert, dass Khader nicht nur eine ausführlichere Begründung schuldig bleibt, sondern dass ihr Konzept von (...) Unterdrückung mit einigen der Ziele ihrer Theorie sowie mit den Begründungsformen, die sie für universale Werte vorschlägt, in direktem Konflikt steht. Zunächst wendet sich Abschnitt 2 der Frage zu, wie Khader Unterdrückung genau versteht. Abschnitt 3 argumentiert, dass ihr Konzept von Unterdrückung mit einigen Zielen ihrer Theorie, insbesondere dem Antiimperialismus, in Konflikt steht. Abschnitt 4 schlägt vor, dass ein Konzept von Unterdrückung als Entzug von Autonomie besser zu den antiimperialistischen Zielen von Khaders Theorie passt und dazu geeignet ist, die Offenheit bezüglich des Inhalts grundlegender Menschenrechte zu adressieren. (shrink)

In this paper, I respond to recent attempts by philosophers to deny the existence of something that is both real and significant: reasonable disagreements between epistemic peers. In their arguments against the possibility of such disagreements, skeptical philosophers typically invoke one or more of the following: indifference reasoning , equal weight principles , and uniqueness theses . I take up each of these in turn, finding ample reason to resist them. The arguments for indifference reasoning and equal weight principles tend (...) to overlook the possibility of a certain kind of agnostic credal state which I call deep agnosticism , the possibility of which derails the arguments. The arguments for uniqueness theses tend to invoke a flawed understanding of the evidential support relation. When these problems and misunderstandings are brought into the light and corrected, the threat to reasonable disagreement vanishes. (shrink)

‘Recognition’ is a normative concept denoting the ascription of positive status to a group or an individual by (an) other(s). In its larger meaning, it carries the implication that when a group or an individual can justifiably expect such a positive status-ascription, its denial (misrecognition) is unjustified and unethical. I discuss the role that the concept of recognition can play at the intersection of two philosophies, pragmatism and contemporary critical theory. My perspective is one that embraces the ‘pragmatic turn’ in (...) critical theory and sees the possibility of reciprocal benefit for pragmatism in how critical theory handles issues of material culture, alienation and networks of power. I argue that a critical social theory incorporating pragmatist presuppositions ought to bring the concept of recognition to bear in how it isolates and treats the ‘real interests’ of groups and individuals who have suffered and continue to suffer from broad social ascriptions of negative status, or who, through lack of voice and access to the public sphere, remain paralysed to participation in a thriving liberal democracy. In doing so, I do not construe recognition primarily as ‘positive tolerance’ or understanding of cultural, ethnic, or gender identity, but as a minimally substantive tool for understanding, and potentially correcting, how misrecognition impacts the collective and individual agency of the historically oppressed. (shrink)

Advocates for re-localizing food systems often encourage consumers to support local farmers and strengthen local food economies. Yet, local food systems hinge not only on consumers’ willingness to buy local food but also on whether farmers have the social support networks to address diverse challenges during food production and distribution. This study characterizes the challenges and support systems of farmers selling to local markets in Québec, Canada, across multiple growing seasons using a mixed-methods research design. We sent an online questionnaire (...) to 1046 farmers and conducted follow-up interviews with 15 of the 133 respondents. Our findings show that farmers relied on an average of four support actor groups, particularly employees, customers, and other farmers. Actors played distinct roles in terms of the importance, frequency, and formality of interactions, providing immediate and long-term support through formal and informal relationships across multiple spatial scales (farm, local community, and regional/international). Our thematic analysis showed that support actors helped farmers in four key domains: (1) Knowledge sharing and emotional support; (2) Labour and workforce; (3) Material and financial aid; and (4) Consumer education and business promotion. Farmer associations provided resources to tackle various challenges, acting as bridges across multiple support actor groups. Yet, our results suggest that political desires to encourage local food systems are in some cases poorly matched with resources to address specific types of challenges farmers face. Specifically, overlooking the role of diverse social support actors in helping farmers build food production and distribution capacity could undermine efforts to foster localization. (shrink)

Conciliationism is a view—well, a family of views—in the epistemology of disagreement. The idea, simply put, is that, in a wide range of cases where you find yourself in disagreement with another reasoner about the truth of some proposition, you are rationally obliged to adjust your credence in the direction of hers. Conciliationism enjoys a fair bit of prima facie plausibility. Most versions of it, however, suffer from a common (and rather obvious) problem: self-incrimination. Although there is some recognition in (...) the recent literature on disagreement that there is a problem in this vicinity, it, more often than not, is completely ignored. When it is not completely ignored, both the conciliationists and their critics tend to frame the problem incorrectly. As a result, they end up focusing most of their attention on pseudo-problems rather than the genuine worry. Furthermore, even when they have hit on the genuine worry, conciliationists have tended to give surprising and implausible responses to it. Even by their own lights, conciliationists aren’t justified in believing their conciliationist theses. In this paper, I argue that it’s time to come clean. Time to look for a view on the epistemic significance of disagreement that we can actually be justified in believing. (shrink)

Kerstin Thomas revaluates the famous dispute between Martin Heidegger, Meyer Schapiro, and Jacques Derrida, concerning a painting of shoes by Vincent Van Gogh. The starting point for this dispute was the description and analysis of things and artworks developed in his essay, “The Origin of the Work of Art”. In discussing Heidegger’s account, the art historian Meyer Schapiro’s main point of critique concerned Heidegger’s claim that the artwork reveals the truth of equipment in depicting shoes of a peasant woman (...) and thereby showing her world. Schapiro sees a striking paradox in Heidegger’s claim for truth, based on a specific object in a specific artwork while at the same time following a rather metaphysical idea of the artwork. Kerstin Thomas proposes an interpretation, which exceeds the common confrontation of philosophy versus art history by focussing on the respective notion of facticity at stake in the theoretical accounts of both thinkers. Schapiro accuses Heidegger of a lack of concreteness, which he sees as the basis for every truth claim on objects. Thomas understands Schapiro’s objections as motivated by this demand for a facticity, which not only includes the work of art, but also investigator in his concrete historical perspective. Truth claims under such conditions of facticity are always relative to historical knowledge, and open to critical intervention and therefore necessarily contingent. Following Thomas, Schapiro’s critique shows that despite his intention of giving the work of art back its autonomy, Heidegger could be accused of achieving quite the opposite: through the abstraction of the concrete, the factual, and the given to the type, he actually sets the self and the realm of knowledge of the creator as absolute and not the object of his knowledge. Instead, she argues for a revaluation of Schapiro’s position with recognition of the arbitrariness of the artwork, by introducing the notion of factuality as formulated by Quentin Meillassoux. Understood as exchange between artist and object in its concrete material quality as well as with the beholder, the truth of painting could only be shown as radically contingent. Thomas argues that the critical intervention of Derrida who discusses both positions anew is exactly motivated by a recognition of the contingent character of object, artwork and interpretation. His deconstructive analysis can be understood as recognition of the dynamic character of things and hence this could be shown with Meillassoux to be exactly its character of facticity – or factuality. (shrink)

The vegan project is defined as the project that strives for radical legal reform to pass laws that would reserve the consumption of animal products to a very narrow range of situations, resulting in vegan diets being the default diets for the majority of human beings. Two objections that have been raised against such a project are described. The first is that such a project would jeopardise the nutritional adequacy of human diets. The second is that it would alienate human (...) beings from nature. It is argued that neither undermines the vegan project. (shrink)

The moral enhancement of human beings is a constant theme in the history of humanity. Today, faced with the threats of a new, globalised world, concern over this matter is more pressing. For this reason, the use of biotechnology to make human beings more moral has been considered. However, this approach is dangerous and very controversial. The purpose of this article is to argue that the use of another new technology, AI, would be preferable to achieve this goal. Whilst several (...) proposals have been made on how to use AI for moral enhancement, we present an alternative that we argue to be superior to other proposals that have been developed. (shrink)

Jeremy Waldron introduced the notion of rights supersession into the philosophical discussion about restitutive justice in cases of historic injustices. He refers to land claims by indigenous peoples as a real-world example and as an application of his theory of rights supersession. He implies that the changes that have taken place in settler states since the first years of colonialism are the kind of changes that lead to a supersession of land rights. The article proposes to unbundle property rights into (...) rights of benefit, control, use, and access and to distinguish between different forms of attachment. This strategy allows for a third option of restitution and supersession, namely partial restitution. Partial restitution grants current land holders those rights that they need to satisfy their attachments and basic distributive justice claims. At the same time, rights that are not needed for either purpose will revert back to indigenous peoples as the original owners. The article argues that the notion of partial restitution allows for far more extensive land rights than a less nuanced application of the supersession thesis. (shrink)

Using a unique dataset provided by the international rating agency GES®, we investigate the effects of corporate sustainability and industry-related exposure to environmental and social risks on the market value of MSCI World firms. The results show a negative relationship in the earlier years of our sample period. However, the analysis reveals that the capital market perception of sustainability has changed owing to the financial crisis. Looking at the height of the crisis in September 2008, the month in which Lehman (...) Brothers shocked the world’s capital markets by filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, we find that the previously negative perception of corporate sustainability across its various dimensions was positively affected and offset. In addition, as a moderated regression analysis shows, the crisis led to a positive perception of corporate sustainability in industries that are exposed to higher environmental and social risks. Our study has the practical implication that executives, in particular in industries with high environmental and social risks, should increase their commitment to corporate sustainability due to the changes in the institutional setting triggered by the financial crisis. (shrink)

We investigated teachers' and children's experiences of philosophy with children by analysing the content of interviews with primary school teachers and discussions with groups of primary school pupils. The results show that regular philosophy sessions with children can have an impact on teachers’ view of themselves as educators, their approach to teaching and their personal development. From the children’s point of view, the most important and meaningful aspect, aside from the content of philosophical discussion, was the opportunity to think together (...) in an open-ended way. A key component of the collective construction of meaning was uncertainty, which is an integral feature of philosophical discussion. These findings link with the idea of “citizen as agent” in a variety of ways. Philosophising with children leads to a more collaborative and democratic teaching style, giving children the space to bring their own interests and activities to the discussion. This aligns with pupils’ enjoyment of the openness and uncertainty of philosophical issues, their appreciation of the opportunity to engage with different ideas and viewpoints, and their willingness to rise to the challenge of revising their own positions and changing their thinking. (shrink)

This article will investigate Rawls's claim that his theory is Kantian in origin. In drawing on the Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy, I will show that Rawls's claim to be Kantian cannot be conclusively explained and assessed without the Lectures. An investigation of the Lectures shows that Rawls forces onto Kant's theory a Rawlsian interpretation which crucially alters Kant's theory. So far the secondary literature has neglected to subject Rawls's Lectures to detailed philosophical scrutiny. This article aims to (...) fill this gap in the literature on Rawls's Kantianism. I will identify three points in Rawls's interpretation of Kant (need for CI-procedure, willing condition, true human needs) which are questionable. I argue that the similarities of Rawls's theory to Kant are due to these (mis)interpretations, which makes Rawls's claim to be Kantian ultimately not legitimate. (shrink)

This article deals with the International Criminal Court (ICC) as a point of contention in US relations with Germany and Japan. Both countries rank among America's closest allies, but they have also been supporting the establishment and operation of the ICC, although each to a different extent. The article analyzes the reasons for the three countries-vis the US. It suggests that Berlin's idealistic position and full ICC support on the one hand, as well as Japan's cautious and pragmatic approach on (...) the other, are both rooted not only in their individual evaluations of the ICC's institutional design, but also the varying degrees of their bi/multilateral orientation and the extent of their on US security commitments. (shrink)

Breast reconstruction is an everyday, apparently nonviolent, even benevolent, remaking of the normal, and the reasons for why reconstruction is motivated and legitimate are uncontroversial and widely accepted. In this article the author will, through Donna Haraway's way of conceptualizing discourses, analyze what she calls “stories without significance.” The author has mapped the stories and interpretations of women undergoing reconstruction, stories that are not becoming part of the monovocal discourse of breast reconstruction. Thus, she focuses on the things said that (...) are not assigned significance, the silences and impossibilities. The article is also an effort to account for some of the invisible work that goes into the process of breast reconstruction in dialogue with the feminist field of science and technology studies. This to explore the making of the normal in a medical practice and reflect on how modest interventions could be made. (shrink)

The article analyses the compulsory care of drug misusers in Sweden. An historical analysis of this field of work as a part of the Swedish welfare state highlights historically changing legislations, institutions, understandings and practices. Following Foucault, it is argued that it is impossible to distinguish between power and care and that confusion about coercive care is a result of not acknowledging power. Empirical studies of current social work point to the significance of different institutional settings. The author's study of (...) the Swedish probation service shows that social workers and clients may adopt different positions in relation to each other and that their experiences of the practice of social work depend on the congruence or disparity between these positions. The problematic role of motivation in coercive care is highlighted. While some scholars claim that motivation is not possible in coercive institutions, the author relates motivation to the caring power arguing that social work is always aimed at normality and that care is exercised to achieve normality. The promise of an improved life situation may make people in need of help adapt to the demands of the helper, and the caring power can be seen as a way to provide help for individuals who do not realize that they are in need of care. (shrink)

This book presents the reader with a comprehensive and structured understanding of the ethics of Artificial Intelligence (AI). It describes the main ethical questions that arise from the use of AI in different areas, as well as the contribution of various academic disciplines such as legal policy, environmental sciences, and philosophy of technology to the study of AI. AI has become ubiquitous and is significantly changing our lives, in many cases, for the better, but it comes with ethical challenges. These (...) challenges include issues with the possibility and consequences of autonomous AI systems, privacy and data protection, the development of a surveillance society, problems with the design of these technologies and inequalities in access to AI technologies. This book offers specialists an instrument to develop a rigorous understanding of the main debates in emerging ethical questions around AI. The book will be of great relevance to experts in applied and technology ethics and to students pursuing degrees in applied ethics and, more specifically, in AI ethics. (shrink)