This volume gives an overview of the rising field of Experimental Ethics. It is organized into five main parts: PART I – Introduction: An Experimental Philosophy of Ethics? // PART II – Applied Experimental Ethics: Case studies // PART III – On Methodology // PART IV – Critical Reflections // PART V – Future Perspectives. Among the contributors: Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, Eric Schwitzgebel, Ezio di Nucci, Jacob Rosenthal, and Fernando Aguiar.

Adam Kolber argues against retributivist theories of punishment, based on considerations of moral uncertainty. In this reply, I suggest that Kolber’s argument will not have the implications he supposes, in part because, if it’s able to raise difficulties for retributivism, similar problems will arise for a wide variety of other approaches to punishment.

A new computationalist view of the mind that takes into account real-world issues of embodiment, interaction, physical implementation, and semantics.

Was macht das Besondere der menschlichen Lebensform aus? Wie können wir es verstehen, dass unsere Art wie alle anderen natürlich evolviert ist und dennoch als einzige Art die Fähigkeit entwickelt hat, unter dem Anspruch der Freiheit und in reflexiver Distanz zu handeln, damit aber die Umwelt auf eine Welt hin zu transzendieren? Jung argumentiert, dass sich diese Fragen nur beantworten lassen, wenn man philosophische, evolutionstheoretische und kognitionswissenschaftliche Ansätze aufeinander bezieht. Der Schlüssel hierfür ist der Begriff der Bedeutung. Alle Lebewesen erfassen (...) ihre Umwelt im praktischen Umgang mit ihr als bedeutsam. Auch der Geist des Menschen ist essentiell verkörpert und basiert auf erlebten Bedeutsamkeiten. Die Fähigkeit zur symbolischen Artikulation und kulturellen Weiterentwicklung solcher Lebensbedeutungen erlaubt es ihm aber auch, die lokale Umwelt zu transzendieren und dabei Werte, Normen und objektive Geltungsansprüche zu entwickeln. Eine zeitgemäße Anthropologie muss in der Lage sein, diese qualitativen Besonderheiten des menschlichen Geistes als Resultate von Naturprozessen verständlich zu machen. Sie verbindet methodischen Naturalismus mit Offenheit für die Transzendenz des Geistes über die Umwelt. Damit leistet der Autor einen wichtigen Beitrag zu einem nichtreduktionistischen Verständnis des Menschen, das Leib und Geist nicht dualistisch trennt, sondern ihre spannungsvolle Einheit sichtbar macht. (shrink)

The paper explains in what sense the GRW matter density theory is a primitive ontology theory of quantum mechanics and why, thus conceived, the standard objections against the GRW formalism do not apply to GRWm. We consider the different options for conceiving the quantum state in GRWm and argue that dispositionalism is the most attractive one.

Zoos attract millions of visitors every year, many of whom are schoolchildren. For this reason, zoos are important institutions for the environmental education of future generations. Empirical studies on the educational impact of environmental education programs in zoos are still rare. To address this issue, we conducted two studies: In study 1, we investigated students’ interests in different biological topics, including zoos ( n = 1,587). Data analysis of individual topics revealed large differences of interest, with advanced students showing less (...) interest in zoos. In study 2, we invited school classes of this age group to visit different guided tours at the zoo and tested connection to nature before and after each educational intervention ( n = 608). The results showed that the guided tours are an effective tool to raise students’ connection to nature. Add-on components have the potential to further promote connection to nature. The education programs are most effective with students with a low initial nature connection. (shrink)

, encapsulates his deep hostility to Marxist thinking. his deep hostility to Marxist thinking. his deep hostility to Marxist thinking. his deep hostility to Marxist thinking. By contrast, my own allusion is friendly, By contrast, my own allusion is friendly, and is meant to point up a nice parallel and is meant to point up a nice parallel my argument has with a schematic my argument has with a schematic aspect of Marx’s thinking. aspect of Marx’s thinking.

This paper argues that economics, over the past 200 years, has become steadily more anti-philosophical and that there are three stages in the development of economic thought. Adam Smith intended economics to be a descriptive social science, rooted in an understanding of the moral and psychological processes of an individual’s decision-making and its connection to society in general. Yet, immediately after Smith’s death, economists made a clean cut and invented a totally new discipline: they switched towards a physicalist understanding of (...) human nature. Humans, like atoms, follow a natural law: they are driven by an emotion (defined as a non-emotion, rationality), namely selfishness. Thus economics became a ‘natural’ science. In the 20th century, the second reinterpretation removed all traces of humanity from the study of economics and declared economics to be a formal science like mathematics and logics. The actor in Phase 3 economics is homo economicus syntheticus, a postulate whose only connection to real humanity is the word homo. The paper asks what the results of this dramatic relocation are and why Phase 3 economics still claims descent from Smithian economics, despite the massive differences. (shrink)

Focusing on his essays “New value‐free sociology” and “Remarks on social conflict today,” this chapter discusses Adorno's assessments of how Karl Mannheim, Georg Simmel, Lewis Coser, and Ralf Dahrendorf have addressed the tensions and conflicts that beset contemporary society. The chapter draws on these sociologists' works and on Adorno's reading of them to elucidate core arguments in his critique of both their conceptions of the social world and their sociological modes of procedure. Particular emphasis is placed on Adorno's notion of (...) the potential of a sociological approach that is more suitable for gaining insight into the antagonistic capitalist condition. The key components of such an approach, notably experience, its interplay with theory, and sociology's response to appearance, are further illuminated with reference to passages that illustrate their operations in sociological research. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In Europe’s Crisis of Legitimacy: Governing by Rules and Ruling by Numbers in the Eurozone, Vivien Schmidt authoritatively charts how the European Union weathered the crisis of its single currency in the 2010s, gradually moving from fiscal austerity and structural reform to a more systemic solution and flexible interpretation of the euro’s governing rules. Using a discursive institutionalist approach in combination with a “systems theory” understanding of democratic decision making, Schmidt persuasively argues that we need to look at the (...) euro problem as a fundamentally political problem that lacked democratic legitimacy as long as technocrats were in charge of policy solutions. Schmidt argues that the euro crisis needs to be broached from the point of view of the E.U.’s split-level legitimacy as well as the growing politicization of E.U. governance in an era of increasing populism and rising Euroskepticism. Schmidt’s application of discursive institutionalism allows readers to judge for themselves whose and which ideas mattered, why and in what way they were implemented, and how they gradually evolved over time. (shrink)

Argues for a closer connection between memories of injustice and promises of justice as a means to overcome violence.

In literary journals, the composition of contributions and the neighbourhood of authors play a special role. The curated community of texts, which here relate to each other and enter into conversation with each other, differs both from independent publications and from the communication strategies of social media.

The question whether God should be thought of as personal or a-personal is closely linked to the issue of an appropriate model of God-world relation on the one hand and the question how to conceive divine action on the other hand. Starting with a discussion of the scientific character of theology, this article critically examines the univocal-personal concept of God. Traditional Christian conceptions of God have, however, always acknowledged a radical asymmetry between the personal existence of created beings and the (...) ground of being itself. In a second step, the ontological truth claim associated with this way of speaking about God is being related to its methodological consequences. In final step, attention is given to the relation of immanence and transcendence as it is defended in different versions of panentheism: As an alternative to divine interventionism, panentheism can be shown to explicate divine providence as formal and final causation. (shrink)

Nach wie vor formuliert der Hinweis darauf, wie «es in Wirklichkeit ist», einen Wahrheitsanspruch, und nach wie vor hat es eine disqualifizierende Wirkung, wenn wir jemandem «Realitätsverlust» bescheinigen, obgleich man in Philosophie und Kulturwissenschaften seit mindestens einem Jahrhundert und seit einiger Zeit auch in der Psychiatrie darüber diskutiert, ob es «die Wirklichkeit» überhaupt gibt, ob nicht viele - möglicherweise gleichberechtigte - Wirklichkeiten nebeneinander existieren. In dem Band befassen sich Wissenschaftlerinnen und Wissenschaftler aus Ethnologie, Jurisprudenz, Medizin, Philosophie, Psychologie und Soziologie u.a. (...) mit der Frage, ob das Festhalten an einer Wirklichkeit unter bestimmten Umständen sinnvoll ist und was geschieht, wenn unterschiedliche Realitätsauffassungen miteinander konfligieren. (shrink)

This article examines the meta-philosophical rift which runs through the Pittsburgh School of contemporary philosophy. The rift is a disagreement about the appropriateness and likelihood of success of the kind of attempt at philosophical explanation in which implicitly mastered conceptual practices are reconstructed by way of combining simple and easily surveyable practical rules. While for Robert Brandom, such explanations can yield a genuinely better understanding of the target practice or vocabulary, and are thus an appropriate instrument for analytical philosophy, John (...) McDowell considers them symptomatic of a wholly mistaken view of discursive practice, and takes their failure to be inevitable. According to McDowell, the futility of (“linear”) philosophical reconstructions is due to the holistic structure of linguistic competence and hence intentionality itself: distinct concrete conceptual practices presuppose each other in holistic (and hence circular) ways. This article defends Brandom’s thesis of the compatibility of the holism cited by McDowell on the one hand, and the possibility of philosophical explanation on the other, using a concrete example of a successful reconstruction which could be described as “linear” in McDowell’s sense. Finally, two possible answers in support of McDowell’s scepticism are discussed with a view to establishing room for a continuation of the debate. (shrink)

Ernest Nagel was one of the first philosophers of science who reflected systematically on the methodology of the social sciences. His cooperation with Paul F. Lazarsfeld at Columbia University proved to be instructive in this regard. Moreover, Nagel stood in close contact with representatives of sociological functionalism and published, in 1956, a contribution on the prospects of a formalization of functionalism. In his seminal The Structure of Science from 1961, Nagel devoted two long chapters to methodological and explanatory problems of (...) the social sciences. The aim of the present chapter is to rationally reconstruct this 1961 account. I will proceed in three steps: first, I shall shed some light on Nagel’s discussion of the problem of a clear-cut demarcation between the natural and the social sciences; then Nagel’s interpretation of the presumptive ‘immaturity’ of the social sciences will be taken into account; finally, two case studies will be provided in order to illustrate the implications of Nagel’s particular analysis. (shrink)

This chapter develops an eco-deconstructive account of normativity in relation to well-known but divergent accounts of the emergence of ‘value’ in nature. Value has been argued to emerge with the individual capacity for suffering, with individual self-valuing, or with holistic ecological entities (species, eco-systems, etc.), these three often being seen as at odds with one another. I argue that an entity can become individualized, and thus acquire individual ‘value,’ only in on-going confrontations with other beings and the wider environment. Each (...) living being can be seen as valuing its own life, then, only in response to a vulnerable exposure to its environment that it cannot just claim as its own: its self-affirmation necessarily affirms others and its environment. In this way, the three sources are interconnected in an aporetic matrix of ecological normativities. (shrink)

Defeaters can prevent a perceptual belief from being justified. For example, when you know that red light is shining at the table before you, you would typically not be justified in believing that the table is red. However, can defeaters also destroy a perceptual experience as a source of justification? If the answer is ‘no’, the red light defeater blocks doxastic justification without destroying propositional justification. You have some-things-considered, but not all-things-considered, justification for believing that the table is red. If (...) the answer is ‘yes’, the red light defeater blocks doxastic justification by destroying propositional justification. You have neither all-things-considered nor some-things-considered justification for believing that the table is red. According to dogmatism, the justificational force of perceptual experiences is indestructible. According to conservatism about sense experience, a perceptual experience ceases to have justificational force if there is evidence against its reliability. Finally, according to meta-evidentialism, a perceptual experience is blocked from being a source of justification is there is no evidence of its reliability. I argue that, of these three theories, meta-evidentialism is the most plausible. (shrink)

The article attempts to clarify the relationship between justifying ethical norms and applying them. The first part considers the role of philosophy within applied ethical contexts. The second part discusses the long tradition of comparing mathematics and ethics and recommends a method for the procedure to be followed in an ethical discussion. This recommendation relies on Rawls' reflective equilibrium. The subsequent attempt to justify ethics is primarily based on the idea that human communal life without some form of morality is (...) not a realistic goal to pursue but still that one may choose between various forms of morality. The last part of the paper contains several indications of how to apply different ethical approaches and how to follow the procedure presented here in light of the debate regarding Peter Singer's ethics. Der Artikel bemüht sich, das Verhältnis von Ethikbegründung und Ethikanwendung zu klären. Im ersten Teil werden dazu einige Überlegungen zur Rolle der Philosophie in Kontexten der Ethikanwendung angestellt. Ein zweiter Teil enthält neben Hinweisen auf die lange Tradition der Vergleiche von Mathematik und Ethik einen methodischen Vorschlag für das Vorgehen im Rahmen der ethischen Diskussion, der sich an Rawls' reflective equilibrium anlehnt. Der folgende Versuch einer Ethikbegründung basiert primär auf dem Gedanken, daß ein menschliches Zusammenleben ohne irgendeine Form der Moral aus anthropologischen Gründen kein realistisch erstrebbares Ziel ist, daß man jedoch zwischen unterschiedlichen Formen der Moral die Wahl hat. Im letzten Teil werden dann u.a. anhand der Debatte um Peter Singer einige Hinweise zur Anwendung verschiedener Ethikansätze und zur Anwendung des präsentierten Verfahrens gegeben. (shrink)

John Duns Scotus deals with a question which is still of importance for modern ethical debate, namely what is the difference between a good deed which is intended but may be hindered by the circumstances and a good deed which is both intended and consummated? Scotus discusses this issue in connection with the question of whether moral goodness or badness can be assigned to the external act, which depends on physical capability. In his investigation, he determines that the imputability of (...) acts, i.e. the fact that the actor had free power of disposition over them, is a criterion for being able to morally qualify them as good or bad. His conclusion that one can clearly attribute the external act with its own moral good or evil is primarily based on his definition of the moral good as the totality of circumstances necessary according to right reason for a good act. William of Ockham expressly rejects Doctor Subtilis' conclusion and relativizes his criterion of moral goodness to the point of meaninglessness. Ockham attributes the moral good or evil of an act almost exclusively to the actor's intention. He explains the moral significance attributable to the actual consummation of an intentional action in terms of the acts of will occurring during and after consummation, which can be morally judged in their own right. He does admit, however, that a judgment made by mortals is based on criteria different from those relevant in the eyes of God. Today, the particularly interesting aspect of this debate seems to be that a moral conception similar to Kant's is confronted with a position that can still be called Aristotelian, albeit with some Augustinian influence. Yet the perceivable theoretical proximity between these two authors could indicate a possible connection between two of the most important ethical concepts in the history of occidental philosophy. Die auch für moderne Ethikkonzepte nicht unwichtige Frage, worin der moralische Unterschied zwischen einer nur gewollten, aber durch die Umstände verhinderten und einer ausgeführten guten Tat liegt, wird von Johannes Duns Scotus im Zusammenhang mit der Frage bearbeitet, ob dem äußeren, auf körperliche Vermögen angewiesenen Akt eine eigene moralische Güte oder Schlechtigkeit zukommt. Bei seiner Untersuchung ermittelt er als Kriterium für die moralische Qualifizierbarkeit in die eine oder andere Richtung die Zurechenbarkeit von Handlungen, d.h. den Umstand, daß sie in der freien Verfügungsgewalt des Handelnden stehen. Das Resultat seiner Überlegungen, daß nämlich der äußeren Handlung sehr wohl eine eigene moralische Güte oder Schlechtigkeit zugesprochen werden kann, basiert wesentlich auf seiner Definition der moralischen Güte als Gesamtheit der gemäß der rechten Vernunft für eine gute Handlung erforderlichen Umstände. Wilhelm von Ockham weist das Resultat des Doctor Subtilis ausdrücklich zurück und relativiert dessen Kriterium moralischer Güte bis zur weitgehenden Bedeutungslosigkeit. Er führt die moralische Güte oder Schlechtigkeit eines Aktes ausschließlich auf die Intentionen des Handelnden zurück und erklärt die eigene moralische Bedeutung, die der Ausführung einer willentlichen Handlung zukommt, durch die während und nach der Ausführung stattfindenden Willensakte, die ihrerseits moralischer Beurteilung unterliegen. Allerdings gesteht er zu, daß die Beurteilung durch die irdische Gerichtsbarkeit z.T. anderen Gesichtspunkten folgt als die vor den Augen Gottes. Heute scheint an dieser Debatte vor allem der Umstand interessant, daß eine der kantischen nicht unähnliche Moralkonzeption mit einer trotz aller augustinischen Einfüsse noch aristotelischen Position konfrontiert wird. Die dennoch feststellbare theoretische Nähe beider Autoren könnte Hinweise für eine mögliche Verknüpfung dieser beiden wohl wichtisten Ethikkonzepte der abendländischen Philosophiegeschichte geben. (shrink)

ZusammenfassungDurch eine Gesetzesänderung im Dezember 2019 ist im Rahmen von Strafermittlungsverfahren nunmehr der Einsatz des „Forensic DNA Phenotyping“, d. h. von Technologien zur Vorhersage von Haut-, Haar- und Augenfarbe sowie biologischem Alter, erlaubt. Dieser Beitrag diskutiert die Verlässlichkeit, Nützlichkeit und Legitimität von solchen Erweiterten DNATechnologien und damit die Rahmenbedingungen ihres Einsatzes in Deutschland. Dabei wird aufgezeigt wie kompliziert, fehleranfällig, voraussetzungsreich, anspruchsvoll und heikel der Einsatz dieser Technologien in Ermittlungen sein kann, wenn nicht entsprechende Vorkehrungen getroffen werden, und wenn sie nicht (...) auf umsichtig begleitete Einzelfälle beschränkt bleiben. Aufbauend auf dieser Analyse werden schließlich Maßnahmen für die Anwendung und Regulierung Erweiterter DNA-Technologien in Deutschland vorgeschlagen. (shrink)

The plural, impure or discordant nature of time has become an important theme in recent critical social and political theory. Against Althusser’s dismissal of Sartre’s presumedly Hegelian understanding of time and history, this article establishes Jean-Paul Sartre as a key figure in this debate on the plurality of temporalities. Especially in the Critique of Dialectical Reason, Sartre understands history and the social in terms of a multiplicity of uneven and non-synchronous temporalisations, rejecting an notion of time as a universal container (...) within which events take place. The originality of Sartre’s approach is that it establishes a link between the notion of the plurality of temporalities and the problem of freedom and domination. His mature social and political theory allows us to understand temporalisation as a strategy for domination, and objective social temporality as key to a form of anonymous or structural domination. A reconstruction of this highly complex and sophisticated approach to thinking domination through time can also shed an original light on the temporal dimension of democracy and totalitarianism. (shrink)

It is a common view in cognitive psychology that there is a fundamental difference between what may be called descriptive information, on the one hand, and depictive information, on the other. While the first kind of information is — ideally spoken — non-pictorial and usually equated with the content of a proposition, the second kind of information is pictorial by defmition and accordingly equated with the content of a mental image. Granting the correctness of this distinction, cognitive scientists differ on (...) the role played by mental images in epistemic processes. One faction, represented by the writings of Zenon Pylyshyn, asserts that mental images are merely an epiphenomenon of a more general and abstract processing system, and that they are in principle dispensable since they do not have any truth value.1 Another faction, represented by the writings of Stephen Kosslyn, favors the opposite view, maintaining that mental images are indispensable since they play, in spite of their lack of truth value, a fundamental role in human thinking.2 As Arthur I. Miller has proposed in his book Imagery in Scientific Thought, these two factions may be labeled as the “antiimagist” and the “pro-imagist” view, respectively. (shrink)

In this article, we use the account of the “inhuman” that is developed in the work of the French philosopher Jean-François Lyotard to develop a critique of human-centred AI. We argue that Lyotard’s philosophy not only provides resources for a negative critique of human-centred AI discourse, but also contains inspiration for a more constructive account of how the discourse around human-centred AI can take a broader view of the human that includes key dimensions of Lyotard’s inhuman, namely performativity, vulnerability, and (...) novelty. We link these dimensions to questions of epistemic injustice and social recognition. In this way, we hope to develop a proposal for what a richer and more meaningful understanding of human-centred AI might look like. (shrink)