Name der Zeitschrift: Neue Zeitschrift für Systematische Theologie und Religionsphilosophie Jahrgang: 58 Heft: 3 Seiten: 285-308.

Discover how pressing contemporary moral issues can be approached and discussed in a distinct and coherently theological fashion. This book displays a more direct approach that has the distinct advantage of being approachable, dramatic, and contemporary. Each chapter approaches its subject matter by demonstrating how the sources of Christian moral reasoning-Scripture and church doctrine-can be imaginatively brought to bear on contemporary moral perplexities. This mode of teaching shows in tangible ways how the Christian gospel does in fact reveal our moral (...) world in clear and penetrating ways. (shrink)

The availability of willing providers of medical assistance in dying in Canada has been an issue since a Canadian Supreme Court decision and the subsequent passing of federal legislation, Bill C14, decriminalised MAiD in 2016. Following this legislation, Hamilton Health Sciences in Ontario, Canada, created a team to support access to MAiD for patients. This research used a qualitative, mixed methods approach to data collection, obtaining the narratives of providers and supporters of MAiD practice at HHS. This study occurred (...) at the outset of MAiD practice in 2016, and 1 year later, once MAiD practice was established. Our study reveals that professional identity and values, personal identity and values, experience with death and dying, and organisation context are the most significant contributors to conscientious participation for MAiD providers and supporters. The stories of study participants were used to create a model that provides a framework for values clarification around MAiD practice, and can be used to explore beliefs and reasoning around participation in MAiD across the moral spectrum. This research addresses a significant gap in the literature by advancing our understanding of factors that influence participation in taboo clinical practices. It may be applied practically to help promote reflective practice regarding complex and controversial areas of medicine, to improve interprofessional engagement in MAiD practice and promote the conditions necessary to support moral diversity in our institutions. (shrink)

Policy work is often cited as one of the primary functions of Hospital Ethics Committees (HECs), along with consultation and education. Hospital policies can have far reaching effects on a wide array of stakeholders including, care providers, patients, families, the culture of the organisation and the community at large. In comparison with the wealth of information available about the emerging practice of ethics consultation, relatively little attention has been paid to the policy work of HECs. In this paper, we hope (...) to advance the development of best practices in HEC policy work by describing the quality improvement process that we undertook at Hamilton Health Sciences, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. In the first section of the paper we describe the context of our HEC policy work, and the shortcomings of our historical review process. In subsequent sections, we detail the quality improvement project we undertook in 2010, the results of the project and the specific tools we developed to enhance the quality of HEC policy work. Our goal in sharing this organisational case study is to prompt other HECs to publish qualitative descriptions of their policy work, in order to generate a body of knowledge that can inform the development of best practices for ethics policy review. (shrink)

Since our moral and legal judgments are focused on our decisions and actions, one would expect information about the neural underpinnings of human decision-making and action-production to have a significant bearing on those judgments. However, despite the wealth of empirical data, and the public attention it has attracted in the past few decades, the results of neuroscientific research have had relatively little influence on legal practice. It is here argued that this is due, at least partly, to the discussion on (...) the relationship of the neurosciences and law mixing up a number of separate issues that have different relevance on our moral and legal judgments. The approach here is hierarchical; more and less feasible ways in which neuroscientific data could inform such judgments are separated from each other. The neurosciences and other physical views on human behavior and decision-making do have the potential to have an impact on our legal reasoning. However, this happens in various different ways, and too often appeal to any neural data is assumed to be automatically relevant to shaping our moral and legal judgments. Our physicalist intuitions easily favor neural-level explanations to mental-level ones. But even if you were to subscribe to some reductionist variant of physicalism, it would not follow that all neural data should be automatically relevant to our moral and legal reasoning. However, the neurosciences can give us indirect evidence for reductive physicalism, which can then lead us to challenge the very idea of free will. Such a development can, ultimately, also have repercussions on law and legal practice. (shrink)

O artigo aborda as críticas e comentários que Sartre tece à Marx e ao marxismo na obra Cadernos para uma Moral. A ênfase do artigo está na compreensão de Marx por Sartre no que concerne a questão da história e moral. Para compreendermos o desenvolvimento das críticas de Sartre proporcionamos uma análise parcialmente comparada entre os textos oriundos de Marx e a avaliação de Sartre acerca da temática nos Cadernos para uma moral. Tratamos de temas comuns tanto à fenomenologia ontológica (...) quanto ao materialismo dialético de Marx tais como a noção de alienação, a própria noção de dialética, mas também temáticas marxistas como trabalho, alienação do trabalho e a própria questão da história. (shrink)

This paper argues that the conditions of the Anthropocene render the four ontologies described by Philippe Descola obsolete, and begins the search for a fifth ontology that speaks to the meaning of...

This article introduces a novel theoretical framework for psychopathy that bridges dominant affective and cognitive models. According to the proposed impaired integration (II) framework of psychopathic dysfunction, topographical irregularities and abnormalities in neural connectivity in psychopathy hinder the complex process of information integration. Central to the II theory is the notion that psychopathic individuals are “‘wired up’ differently” (Hare, Williamson, & Harpur, 1988, p. 87). Specific theoretical assumptions include decreased functioning of the Salience and Default Mode Networks, normal functioning in (...) executive control networks, and less coordination and flexible switching between networks. Following a review of dominant models of psychopathy, we introduce our II theory as a parsimonious account of behavioral and brain irregularities in psychopathy. The II theory provides a unified theoretical framework for understanding psychopathic dysfunction and integrates principle tenets of affective and cognitive perspectives. Moreover, it accommodates evidence regarding connectivity abnormalities in psychopathy through its network theoretical perspective. (shrink)

Rather than being inherently evil, business lobbying is a socially responsible activity which needs to be restrained by ethical standards. To be effective in a business environment, traditional ethical standards need to be translated into language which business persons can speak comfortably. Economical explanations must also be available to explain why ethical standards are appropriate in business. Eight such standards and their validating arguments are proposed with examples showing their use. Internal dialogues regarding the ethics of lobbying objectives and tactics (...) will plausibly occur only in businesses which recognize social responsibility mandates. Public interest stakeholders could hasten this recognition by making use of information made available by the Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995 to institute external dialogues regarding lobbying by specific businesses and industry groups. Given practical ethical standards and the information on business lobbying provided by the law, the press, corporate activists, consumers, pension fund managers and the public can apply pressure for ethical lobbying practices. (shrink)

Reid rejects the image theory --the representative or indirect realist position--that memory-judgements are inferred from or otherwise justified by a present image or introspectible state. He also rejects the trace theory , which regards memories as essentially traces in the brain. In contrast he argues for a direct knowledge account in which personal memory yields unmediated knowledge of the past. He asserts the reliability of memory, not in currently fashionable terms as a reliable belief-forming process, but more elusively as a (...) principle of Commonsense. There remains a contemporary consensus against Reid's position. I argue that Reid's critique is essentially sound, and that the consensus is mistaken; personal memory judgements are spontaneous and non-inferential in the same way as perceptual judgements. But I question Reid's account of the connection between personal memory and personal identity. My primary concern is rationally reconstructive rather than scholarly, and downplays recent interpretations of Reid's faculty psychology as a precursor of functionalism and other scientific philosophies of mind. (shrink)

A fundamental discussion in lower-level undergraduate neuroscience and psychology courses is Descartes’s “radical” or “mind-body” dualism. According to Descartes, our thinking mind, the res cogitans, is separate from the body as physical matter or substance, the res extensa. Since the transmission of sensory stimuli from the body to the mind is a physical capacity shared with animals, it can be confused, misled, or uncertain (e.g., bodily senses imply that ice and water are different substances). True certainty thus arises from within (...) the mind and its capacity to doubt physical stimuli. Since this doubting mind is a thinking thing that is distinct from bodily stimuli, truth and certainty are reached through the doubting mind as cogito ergo sum, or the certainty of itself as it thinks: hence Descartes’s famous maxim, I think, therefore I am. However, in the last century of Western philosophy, with nervous system investigation, and with recent advances in neuroscience, the potential avenues to explore student’s understanding of the epistemology and effects of Cartesian mind-body dualism has expanded. This article further explores this expansion, highlighting pedagogical practices and tools instructors can use to enhance a psychology student’s understanding of Cartesian dualistic epistemology, in order to think more critically about its implicit assumptions and effects on learning. It does so in two ways: first, by offering instructors an alternative philosophical perspective to dualistic thinking: a mind-body holism that is antithetical to the assumed binaries of dualistic epistemology. Second, it supplements this philosophical argument with a practical component: simple mind-body illusions that instructors may use to demonstrate contrary epistemologies to students. Combining these short philosophical and neuroscience arguments thereby acts as a pedagogical tool to open new conceptual spaces within which learning may occur. (shrink)

In 2000, researchers from the Human Genome Project proclaimed that the initial sequencing of the human genome definitively proved, among other things, that there was no genetic basis for race. The genetic fact that most humans were 99.9% the same at the level of their DNA was widely heralded and circulated in the English-speaking press, especially in the United States. This pronouncement seemed proof that long-term antiracist efforts to de-biologize race were legitimized by scientific findings. Yet, despite the seemingly widespread (...) acceptance of the social construction of race, post-HGP genetic science has seen a substantial shift toward the use of race variables in genetic research and, according to a number of prominent scholars, is re-invoking the specter of earlier forms of racial science in some rather discomfiting ways. During the past seven years, the main thrust of human genetic research, especially in the realm of biomedicine, has shifted from a concern with the 99.9% of the shared genome — what is thought to make humans alike — towards an explicit focus on the 0.1% that constitutes human genetic variation. Here I briefly explore some of the potential implications of the conceptualization and practice of early 21st century genetic variation research, especially as it relates to questions of race. (shrink)

Many people are attracted to the idea that plants experience phenomenal conscious states like pain, sensory awareness, or emotions like fear. If true, this would have wide-ranging moral implications for human behavior, including land development, farming, vegetarianism, and more. Determining whether plants have minds relies on the work of both empirical disciplines and philosophy. Epistemology should settle the standards for evidence of other minds, and science should inform our judgment about whether any plants meet those standards. We argue that evidence (...) for other minds comes either from testimony, behavior, anatomy/physiology, or phylogeny. However, none of these provide evidence that plants have conscious mental states. Therefore, we conclude that there is no evidence that plants have minds in the sense relevant for morality. (shrink)

The aesthetics of imperfection emphasises spontaneity, disruption, process and energy over formal perfection and is often ignored by many commentators or seen only in improvisation. This comprehensive collection is the first time imperfection has been explored across all kinds of musical performance, whether improvisation or interpretation of compositions. Covering music, visual art, dance, comedy, architecture and design, it addresses the meaning, experience, and value of improvisation and spontaneous creation across different artistic media. A distinctive feature of the volume is that (...) it brings together contributions from theoreticians and practitioners, presenting a wider range of perspectives on the issues involved. Contributors look at performance and practice across Western and non-Western musical, artistic and craft forms. Composers and non-performing artists offer a perspective on what is 'imperfect' or improvisatory within their work, contributing further dimensions to the discourse. The Aesthetics of Imperfection in Music and the Arts features 39 chapters organised into eight sections and written by a diverse group of scholars and performers. They consider divergent definitions of aesthetics, employing both 18th-century philosophy and more recent socially and historically situated conceptions making this an essential, up-to-date resource for anyone working on either side of the perfection-imperfection debate. (shrink)

23 pages, no figure. Proceedings of "Philosophical Aspects of Modern Cosmology" held in Granada, Spain, 22-23 Sept. 2011. Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics ; doi:10.1016/j.shpsb.2013.02.002.

Ludwig Wittgenstein's conception of the role of objects in our philosophical understanding of the logic of our language is critical for his early philosophy in the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. While the important connections between Heinrich Hertz's Principles of Mechanics and Wittgenstein's Tractatus have long been recognized, recent work by Jed Buchwald has deepened our knowledge of the importance of the object-orientation of Hertz's scientific work in a manner that should also deepen our understanding of the nature of objects in the Tractatus. (...) I will argue that there are important ontological links, involving "a certain physical scheme, one that had powerful implications for thinking as well as doing," between Hertz's work and Wittgenstein's early philosophy. (shrink)

We extend the topos-theoretic treatment given in previous papers of assigning values to quantities in quantum theory, and of related issues such as the Kochen-Specker theorem. This extension has two main parts: the use of von Neumann algebras as a base category (Section 2); and the relation of our generalized valuations to (i) the assignment to quantities of intervals of real numbers, and (ii) the idea of a subobject of the coarse-graining presheaf (Section 3).

Exploring whether clades can reproduce leads to new perspectives on general accounts of biological development and individuation. Here we apply James Griesemer's general account of reproduction to clades. Griesemer's account of reproduction includes a requirement for development, raising the question of whether clades may bemeaningfully said to develop. We offer two illustrative examples of what clade development might look like, though evaluating these examples proves difficult due to the paucity of general accounts of development. This difficulty, however, is instructive about (...) what a general account of development should look like and how it may usefully be applied to research problems (further suggesting a means for evaluating general accounts of development). Reproduction also requires individuation of parent and offspring. We argue that there is no special problem of individuating older and younger clades. The vagaries involved with determining when clades begin, mature, and end are precisely the same as those that arise when the same questions are asked of cells, organisms, or species. Though the question of clade reproduction and selection may still be open, the process of discovery presents new insights into old problems. (shrink)

This article compares the ideas of Amílcar Cabral and Amartya Sen on capability, freedom, resistance and political change, thereby revealing the importance of radical realism in political thought and development studies. Sen’s path-breaking work has been transformative for multiple disciplines, not least development. Yet, reading Sen alongside the ideas of one of Africa’s most successful anti-colonial political leaders is revelatory: it provides the basis for the argument that radical realism is most valuable if it is action-guiding, comparative and about context-specific (...) change. This involves a distinction between realistic political theory and realism in political thought where only the latter demands utopian thinking. What follows from this regarding democracy, impartiality and justice? In answering this with reference to some social movements, the article then defends the political potential of conflict, partisan positions, resistance and political change directed towards overcoming domination. (shrink)

Comprising some of the key texts, this collection illustrates not only Kant's influence on British thought in the 19th century, but also gives a greater insight into British intellectual attitudes of that time.

In this chapter, we examine Iris Murdoch’s views about art. We highlight continuities and differences between her views on art and aesthetics, and those of Plato, Kant, and Freud. We argue that Murdoch’s views about art, though traditionally linked to Plato, are more compatible with Kant’s thought than has been acknowledged—though with his ethics rather than his aesthetics. Murdoch shows Plato’s influence in her idea that beauty is the good in a different guise. However, Murdoch shows a more Kantian than (...) Platonic influence in her suggestion that the experience of beauty can be conducive to virtue, and distances herself from Plato in her claim that the enjoyment, as well as the production, of certain kinds of art can be virtuous. We also argue that her view of bad art as self-consoling fantasy is consonant with Freudian thought. Lastly, we question her view of bad art, specifically concerning her identification of bad art as self-consoling fantasy or entertainment, and her separation of the latter and good art. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Design as Problem‐Solving or Design as Fashion? The Rise of Design As a Profession: Is Design a Response to Consumerism? Consumerism, Self‐expression, and The “Invention” of Design Consumerism Is Not Essential to Design Were Neolithic Flint Tools Designed? Can We Avoid Designing? – The Idea of “Useless Work” The Function and Value of Fashion.

The aim of this article is to explore some aspects of the significance of Simone Weil's work for the question of reconciliation. Focusing on Weil's notion of power, and investigating its plausibility, the article argues that her thinking is less useful than is sometimes supposed for grounding a cosmopolitan ethic. It further argues that Weil's philosophical outlook, with its emphasis on loving everything that happens as an expression of God's will, is in danger of being incapable of taking seriously others' (...) suffering. By picking up on the themes of punishment and forgiveness in her work, it is contended that she does not have readily available a proper conception in this context of our status as political agents. However, it is suggested that there is to be found a more promising line on reconciliation in her work in the notion of luck, and that this concept is one that, more generally, may have a more important role to play in understanding reconciliation than is often supposed. (shrink)

According to the acousmatic thesis defended by Roger Scruton and others, to hear sounds as music is to divorce them from the source or cause of their production. Non-acousmatic experience involves attending to the worldly cause of the sound; in acousmatic experience, sound is detached from that cause. The acousmatic concept originates with Pythagoras, and was developed in the work of 20th century musique concrète composers such as Pierre Schaeffer. The concept yields important insights into the nature of musical experience, (...) but Scruton's version of the acousmatic thesis cannot overcome objections arising from timbral and spatial aspects of music, which seem to relate sounds to the circumstances of their production. These objections arise in part from music's status as a performing art rooted in human gesture and behaviour. Hence I defend a two-fold thesis of "hearing-in", which parallels Richard Wollheim's concept of "seeing-in": both acousmatic and.. (shrink)

Scruton's Aesthetics is a comprehensive critical evaluation of one of the major aestheticians of our age. The lead essay by Scruton is followed by fourteen essays by international commentators plus Scruton's reply. All discuss matters of enduring importance.

Social cognition is critical for successfully navigating social relationships. Current evidence suggests that older adults exhibit poorer performance in several core social-cognitive domains compared to younger adults. Neurocognitive decline is commonly discussed as one of the key arbiters of age-related decline in social-cognitive abilities. While evidence supports this notion, age effects are likely attributable to multiple factors. This paper aims to recontextualize past evidence by focusing issues of motivation, task design, and representative samples. In light of these issues, we identify (...) directions for future research to aide our understanding of social-cognitive aging. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: Enactment: Something Spectators and Performers do The Crucial Concept: “Attending to Another” What it is to “Occasion” Responses Audience Responses: Willing Suspension of Disbelief, Acquired Beliefs, or Acquired Abilities Relativizing the Account by Narrowing its Scope to Narrative Performances.

_ Source: _Volume 29, Issue 2, pp 129 - 147 Thomas Hobbes’s concept of felicity is a re-imagining of the Hellenistic concept of _eudaimonia_, which is based on the doctrine that people by nature are happy with little. His concept is based instead on an alternative view, that people by nature are never satisfied and it directly challenges the Aristotelian and Hellenistic concepts of _eudaimonia_. I also will suggest that Hobbes developed it from ideas he found in Aristotle’s _Rhetoric_ as (...) well as in Francis Bacon’s critique of ancient moral philosophy in _The Advancement of Learning_. (shrink)

What Schelling calls “philosophy of nature,” does not merely and not primarily mean the treatment of a special area “nature,” but means the understanding of nature in terms of the principle of Idea...

Psychobiological responses to music have been examined previously in various naturalistic settings in adults. Choir singing seems to be associated with positive psychobiological outcomes in adults. However, evidence on the effectiveness of singing in children and adolescents is sparse. The COVID-19 outbreak is significantly affecting society now and in the future, including how individuals engage with music. The COVID-19 pandemic is occurring at a time when virtual participation in musical experiences such as singing in a virtual choir has become more (...) prevalent. However, it remains unclear whether virtual singing leads to different responses in comparison with in-person singing. We evaluated the psychobiological effects of in-person choral singing in comparison with the effects of virtual choral singing in a naturalistic pilot within-subject study. A group of children and young adolescents from a school in Salzburg, Austria were recruited to take part in the study. Subjective measures were taken pre- and post-singing sessions once a week. Additionally, salivary biomarkers and quantity of social contacts were assessed pre- and post-singing sessions every second week. Psychological stability, self-esteem, emotional competences, and chronic stress levels were measured at the beginning of in-person singing as well as at the beginning and the end of the virtual singing. We observed a positive impact on mood after both in-person and virtual singing. Over time, in-person singing showed a pre-post decrease in salivary cortisol, while virtual singing showed a moderate increase. Moreover, a greater reduction in stress, positive change in calmness, and higher values of social contacts could be observed for the in-person setting compared to the virtual one. In addition, we observed positive changes in psychological stability, maladaptive emotional competences, chronic stress levels, hair cortisol, self-contingency and quality of life. Our preliminary findings suggest that group singing may provide benefits for children and adolescents. In-person singing in particular seems to have a stronger psychobiological effect. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis paper examines the concept of biopiracy, which initially emerged to challenge various aspects of the regime for intellectual property rights in living organisms, as well as related aspects pertaining to the ownership and apportioning of benefits from ‘genetic resources’ derived from the world’s biodiversity.This paper proposes that we take the allegation of biopiracy seriously due to the impact it has as an intervention which indexes a number of different, yet interrelated, problematizations of biodiversity, biotechnology and IPR. Using the neem (...) tree case as an example, it describes activists’ use of the term as one that involves a deliberate simplification of science and IPR. Additionally, it argues that in so doing, biopiracy is positioned as a touchstone that mobilizes actors and problems, and ultimately generates ‘solutions’ to the very challenges it creates.The paper will also encourage a view of biopiracy claims that does not always treat them simply as claims of theft, or as a misallocation of benefits, but rather as claims that are designed to raise broader questions about the IPR system itself. It concludes by advocating that, in order to properly understand how to address biopiracy, we must be prepared to move beyond the current narrow readings to develop a more complete picture of the term’s influence in challenging how, and by whom, the decisions about what is natural and what is invented come to be made. (shrink)