Debates on the moral status of human embryos have been highly and continuously controversial. For many, these controversies have turned into a fruitless scholastical endeavor. However, recent developments and insights in cellular biology have cast further doubt on one of the core points of dissent: the argument from potentiality. In this article we want to show in a nonscholastical way why this argument cannot possibly survive. Getting once more into the intricacies of status debates is a must in our eyes. (...) Not merely intellectual coherence but the standing and self-understanding of current stem cell research might profit from finally taking leave of the argument from potentiality. (shrink)

People reject ‘paradoxical’ inferences, such as: Luisa didn't play music; therefore, if Luisa played soccer, then she didn't play music. For some theorists, they are invalid for everyday conditionals, but valid in logic. The theory of mental models implies that they are valid, but unacceptable because the conclusion refers to a possibility inconsistent with the premise. Hence, individuals should accept them if the conclusions refer only to possibilities consistent with the premises: Luisa didn't play soccer; therefore, if Luisa played a (...) game then she didn't play soccer. Two experiments corroborated this prediction for three sorts of ‘paradox’, including a disjunctive paradox. (shrink)

Over the last several years, the environmental regulatory system has undergone radical changes. Various private normative schemes, ranging from corporate codes to environmental management systems, environmental reporting standards, project-finance codes and green indexes, have assumed an increasingly important role in the regulatory arena. The emergence of private environmental governance as an important transnational phenomenon raises two interrelated puzzles: efficacy and legitimacy. Underlying the efficacy puzzle is a deep-seated suspicion toward "soft" legal instruments, which to some observers represent nothing but a (...) coordinated form of "greenwash." The legitimacy question reflects a contrary concern — that these private regulatory structures represent new forms of global authority that are in need of distinctive legitimization. The Article begins with an outline of this new global terrain, exploring its historical evolution. It argues that the multiple links and cross-sensitivities between the different global private regimes have created a novel ensemble regulatory structure with positive enforcement and normative externalities. The Article then moves to examine the question of efficacy more generally, developing a nuanced understanding of the social dynamic of "soft-law" regulation, which rejects the binary logic underlying the "soft law"-"greenwash" narratives. Regarding the political dimension, the Article argues that this new ensemble network has brought about a new transnational political sphere which is associated with an extensive, cross-institutional quest for legitimacy. The Article then turns its focus to the field of sustainability indexes, focusing on the two leading global indexes: FTSE4Good Index Series and Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes. These indexes are taken as a prototypical case of transnational private ordering. Drawing on a close analysis of the indexes’ guiding documents and on interviews with senior executives from both organizations, the Article considers the unique features of these indexes as forms of governance and the paths through which they claim to affect society. It then moves to explore the mechanisms of legitimacy employed by FTSE4Good and DJSI, highlighting their distinctive visions of legitimization. A close examination of sustainability indexes generates insights, I will argue, regarding the field of private global environmental governance as a whole. In particular, it highlights both the new political opportunities created by the evolving network of transnational governance and the limits this new structure sets for radical critique. (shrink)

People experience various negative emotions in their everyday lives. They feel anger toward aggressive drivers, shame for making a mistake at work, and guilt for hurting another person. When these...

Journal of Philosophy of Education, EarlyView.

Psychotherapy is provided by professionals, trained, supervised and certified by other professionals, all the way back to Freud and similar founding fathers. Even though methods and styles vary, pa...

Derek Parfit’s early work on the metaphysics of persons has had a vast influence on Western philosophical debates about the nature of personal identity and moral theory. Within the study of Buddhism, it also has sparked a continuous comparative discourse, which seeks to explicate Buddhist philosophical principles in light of Parfit’s conceptual framework. Examining important Parfitian-inspired studies of Buddhist philosophy, this article points out various ways in which a Parfitian lens shaped, often implicitly, contemporary understandings of the anātman doctrine and (...) its relation to Buddhist ethics. I discuss in particular three dominant elements appropriated by Parfitian-inspired scholarship: Parfit’s theoretical categories; philosophical problems raised by his reductionist theory of persons; and Parfit’s argumentative style. I argue that the three elements used in this scholarship constitute different facets of one methodological approach to cross-cultural philosophy, which relies on Western terminology and conceptual schemes to establish a conversation with non-Western philosophy. I suggest that while this methodology is fruitful in many ways, philosophy as a cosmopolitan space may benefit significantly from approaching Buddhist philosophy using its own categories and terminology. (shrink)

Classical presentations of the Buddhist path prescribe the cultivation of various good qualities that are necessary for spiritual progress, from mindfulness and loving-kindness to faith and wisdom. Examining the way in which such qualities are described and classified in early Buddhism—with special reference to their treatment in the Visuddhimagga by the fifth-century Buddhist thinker Buddhaghosa—the present article employs a comparative method in order to identify the Buddhist catalog of virtues. The first part sketches the characteristics of virtue as analyzed by (...) neo-Aristotelian theories. Relying on these accounts, the second part considers three lists from early Buddhism as possible catalogs of virtue: the components of ethical conduct, the 37 factors that contribute to awakening, and the wholesome or beautiful mental factors. I then raise the question of why the Buddhist tradition developed several classifications of virtue, whereas the Western tradition of virtue ethics used a single category. Appealing to the connection between the virtues and living well in the eudaimonistic version of virtue ethics, I propose that one of the reasons why Buddhism developed multiple lists of virtues is its pluralistic acceptance of different modalities of living well and associated practices, in MacIntyre’s sense of the term. These modalities and practices are not equal, but are ordered hierarchically. Accordingly, I conclude that Buddhist ethics ought to be seen as a pluralist-gradualist system rather than a universalist theory. (shrink)

It is a common view in modern scholarship on Buddhist ethics, that attachment to the self constitutes a hindrance to ethics, whereas rejecting this type of attachment is a necessary condition for acting morally. The present article argues that in Vasubandhu's theory of agency, as formulated in the Abhidharmakośabhāṣya (Treasury of Metaphysics with Self-Commentary), a cognitive and psychological identification with a conventional, persisting self is a requisite for exercising moral agency. As such, this identification is essential for embracing the ethics (...) of Buddhism and its way of life. The article delineates the method that Vasubandhu employs to account for the notion of a selfless moral agent, with particular emphasis on his strategies for dealing with one central aspect of agency, self-interested concern for the future. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue against the interpretive view that locates an “undifferentiated mode” – a mode in which Dasein is neither authentic nor inauthentic – in Being and Time. Where Heidegger seems to be claiming that Dasein can exist in an “undifferentiated mode”, he is better understood as discussing a phenomenon I call indifferent inauthenticity. The average everyday “Indifferenz” which is often taken as an indication of an “undifferentiated mode”, that is, is better understood as a failure to distinguish (...) between the possibilities of authentic and inauthentic self-understanding. Dasein's average everyday self-understanding is indifferent to this distinction, and I show that this is precisely what renders it inauthentic. Recognizing this distinction, however, is not enough to render Dasein authentic. Rather, it opens up the possibility of a non-indifferent inauthenticity and what Heidegger calls the possibility of “genuine failure”. To read an “undifferentiated mode” into Being and Time is to misunderstand its methodological progression from Dasein's average everyday, inauthentic self-understanding to its authenticity – “to the thing itself”. A select few passages may at first seem to indicate otherwise. However, Being and Time – like both being in general and Dasein itself – cannot be properly understood “without further ado”.\. (shrink)

The mental prosthesis model (Silvers and Francis 2009) suggests that interpersonal “prosthetic” thinking could support decision making for people with limited cognitive capacities, and positions th...

In many coevolutionary systems members of one party select members of a second party based on quality differences existing among members of the latter (e.g., predators and prey, pollinators and flowers, etc.). We examined the fate of characters that increase (amplifiers) or decrease (attenuators) the perceived amplitude of differences in the quality upon which choice of the selecting party is based. We found that the evolution of such characters depends on (i) the relationship between the cost of the character and (...) the relative benefit it gives to the high quality individuals (if an amplifier) or low quality individuals (if an attenuator), and (ii) the frequency, among members of the selected party, of the quality sought by the selecting party. (shrink)

Uchiyama et al. emphasize that culture evolves directionally and differentially as a function of selective pressures in different populations. Extending these principles to the level of families, lineages, and individuals exposes additional challenges to estimating heritability. Cultural traits expressed differentially as a function of the genetics whose influence they mask or unmask render inseparable the influences of culture and genetics.

A famous portrait of Erasmus by Hans Holbein depicts the scholar with his hands resting on a volume identified as his ‘Herculean Labours’. Erasmus associated this adage with the effort expended and ingratitude encountered by the philologist, and made it central to his self-presentation. In this article, its origins are traced to Erasmus’s encounter with Aldus Manutius, the venetian printer-humanist who published his Adagia in 1508. The impact of Aldus on Erasmus is shown to be significant, affecting his entire ideology (...) of humanism, including its relationship to print and its religious purpose. This article challenges distinctions between the Italian and the Northern Renaissance that are unhelpful for understanding Erasmus’s development. In light of its findings, it also proposes a new interpretation of Holbein’s painting. (shrink)

The Abhidharmakośabhāṣya (Treasury of Metaphysics with Self-Commentary) is a pivotal treatise on early Buddhist thought composed around the fourth or fifth century by the Indian Buddhist philosopher Vasubandhu. This work elucidates the Buddha’s teachings as synthesized and interpreted by the early Buddhist Sarvāstivāda school (“the theory that all [factors] exist”), while recording the major doctrinal polemics that developed around them, primarily those points of contention with the Sautrāntika system of thought (“followers of the scriptures”). Employing the methodology and terminology of (...) the Buddhist Abhidharma system, the Abhidharmakośabhāṣya offers a detailed analysis of fundamental doctrines, such as early Buddhist theories of mind, cosmology, the workings of karman, meditative states and practices, and the metaphysics of the self. One of its unique features is the way it presents the opinions of a variety of Buddhist and Brahminical schools that were active in classical India in Vasubandhu’s time. The work contains nine chapters (the last of which is considered to have been appended to the first eight), which proceed from a description of the unawakened world via the path and practices that are conducive to awakening and ultimately to the final spiritual attainments which constitute the state of awakening. In its analysis of the unawakened situation, it thus covers the elements which make up the material and mental world of sentient beings, the wholesome and unwholesome mental states that arise in their minds, the structure of the cosmos, the metaphysics of action (karman) and the way it comes into being, and the nature of dispositional attitudes and dormant mental afflictions. In its treatment of the path and practices that lead to awakening, the treatise outlines the Sarvāstivāda understanding of the methods of removing defilements through the realization of the four noble truths and the stages of spiritual cultivation. With respect to the awakened state, the Abhidharmakośabhāṣya gives a detailed description of the different types of knowledge and meditational states attained by practitioners who reach the highest stages of the path. (shrink)

People reject ‘paradoxical’ inferences, such as: Luisa didn't play music; therefore, if Luisa played soccer, then she didn't play music. For some theorists, they are invalid for everyday conditionals, but valid in logic. The theory of mental models implies that they are valid, but unacceptable because the conclusion refers to a possibility inconsistent with the premise. Hence, individuals should accept them if the conclusions refer only to possibilities consistent with the premises: Luisa didn't play soccer; therefore, if Luisa played a (...) game then she didn't play soccer. Two experiments corroborated this prediction for three sorts of ‘paradox’, including a disjunctive paradox. (shrink)

In everyday life, we constantly encounter and deal with useful things without pausing to inquire about the sources of their intelligibility. In Div. I of Being and Time, Heidegger undertakes just such an inquiry. According to a common reading of Heidegger's analysis, the intelligibility of our everyday encounters and dealings with useful things is ultimately constituted by practical self-understandings. In this paper, I argue that while such practical self-understandings may be sufficient to constitute the intelligibility of the tools and equipment (...) specific to many practices, these “tools of the trade” are only a small portion of the things we encounter, use, and deal with on a daily basis. Practical self-understandings cannot similarly account for the intelligibility of the more mundane things—like toothbrushes and sidewalks—used in everyday life. I consider whether an anonymous self-understanding as “one,” “anyone,” or “no one in particular” —das Man—might play this intelligibility-constituting role. In examining this possibility, another type of self-understanding comes to light: cultural identities. I show that the cultural identities into which we are “thrown,” rather than practical identities or das Man, constitute the intelligibility of the abundance of mundane things that fill our everyday lives. Finally, I spell out how this finding bears on our understanding of Heidegger's notion of authenticity. (shrink)

This article explores the relationship between the bodily presence of other humans in the lived urban world and the experience of everyday architecture. We suggest, from the perspectives of phenomenology and architecture, that being in the company of others changes the way the built environment appears to subjects, and that this enables us to perform simple daily tasks while still attending to the built environment. Our analysis shows that in mundane urban settings attending to the environment involves a unique attentional (...) mode, which does not rely on concentrating on, or appreciating the architectural objects, but rather on social attention and on the subject’s kinesthesis in relation to the built environment. (shrink)

We introduce a set of biologically and computationally motivated design choices for modeling the learning of language, or of other types of sequential, hierarchically structured experience and behavior, and describe an implemented system that conforms to these choices and is capable of unsupervised learning from raw natural-language corpora. Given a stream of linguistic input, our model incrementally learns a grammar that captures its statistical patterns, which can then be used to parse or generate new data. The grammar constructed in this (...) manner takes the form of a directed weighted graph, whose nodes are recursively (hierarchically) defined patterns over the elements of the input stream. We evaluated the model in seventeen experiments, grouped into five studies, which examined, respectively, (a) the generative ability of grammar learned from a corpus of natural language, (b) the characteristics of the learned representation, (c) sequence segmentation and chunking, (d) artificial grammar learning, and (e) certain types of structure dependence. The model's performance largely vindicates our design choices, suggesting that progress in modeling language acquisition can be made on a broad front—ranging from issues of generativity to the replication of human experimental findings—by bringing biological and computational considerations, as well as lessons from prior efforts, to bear on the modeling approach. (shrink)

While contemplative practices have emerged from wisdom-traditions, the rhetoric surrounding their justification in contemporary public educational settings has been substantially undergirded by the scientific evidence-based approach. This article finds the practice and construct of ‘attention’ to be the bridge between this peculiar encounter of science and wisdom traditions, and a vantage point from which we can re-examine the scope and practice of ‘education’. The article develops an educational typology based on ‘attention’ as a curricular deliberation point. Every pedagogical act rides (...) over a meta-pedagogical injunction of where to attend to find that which society deems worthwhile. The deep curricular teachings thus begin in the question where knowledge of most worth exists and precede content. It is at this hidden level in which our spatial-temporal disposition towards life-meaning can be shaped. Following this typology, the article will suggest that beyond what may be critiqued as instrumental mindfulness-based curricular ‘interventions’ that cater to an economic educational narrative, lurks the trajectory of a contemplative educational turn that may be outwitting over-instrumentalisation through wisdom-traditions. (shrink)

The present chapter examines the philosophical problem of how it is possible, metaphysically and practically speaking, to develop a good moral character when one adheres to the view that a persisting self does not exist. It extracts answers from two thinkers who reject the concept of enduring identity, the Indian philosopher Vasubandhu (4th to 5th centuries CE) and the Western philosopher Derek Parfit (1942–2017). The first section of the chapter outlines some of Vasubandhu’s and Parfit’s shared assumptions concerning the nature (...) of the self and that of personal identity. In section 2, the focus shifts to the distinct ways in which each philosopher advances his understanding of the moral agent. Section 3 suggests that besides formulating different accounts of selfless agency, the ways in which Vasubandhu and Parfit grappled with the problem of agency reveal different approaches to addressing the question of human nature, and consequently, different ways of resolving the difficulties involved in becoming a good person. These differences become apparent in two practices that are relevant to crafting a moral character and that the two thinkers treat, moral commitment and the cultivation of virtue, which are discussed in the final part of the chapter. (shrink)

Heidegger's primary concern in Being and Time is the question of the meaning of being—a distinctly ontological concern. Yet, with discussions of death, guilt, conscience, anxiety, uncanniness, authenticity, and inauthenticity, Heidegger seems to end up in existential territory. The ontological import of these existential excursions is difficult to discern—indeed, it has not been identified in leading interpretations. In this paper, I aim to highlight the ontological import of Heidegger's analysis of anxiety—it manifests the inadequacy of Dasein's fallen and inauthentic self-understanding, (...) which is motivated by the inadequacy of Dasein's fallen and inauthentic, average understanding of being. In making this case, I will clarify the sense in which anxiety involves an experience of world-collapse and show how it functions to reveal the possibilities of authenticity and inauthenticity. (shrink)

Según la noción clásica el derecho es el objeto de la justicia; también clásicamente se dice que el ius es lo justo, lo debido. Según esto, el ius naturale es lo justo que se funda en la naturaleza y es lo debido por naturaleza. Frente a estas nociones clásicas Thomas Hobbes define al ius naturale como la libertad que cada hombre tiene de usar su propio poder como quiera, para la conservación de su propia naturaleza, es decir, de su vida. (...) También podemos marcar la diferencia entre la concepción clásica de la ley natural como dictamen de la razón práctica que ordena al hombre hacia el fin inscripto en su naturaleza, permitiendo reconocer el bien y el mal afin de realizar el primero y evitar el último, de la noción moderna hobbesiana que concibe la lex naturalis como norma general que obliga a realizar lo que preserve mejor su vida u omitir lo que pueda destruirla o privarle de los medios de conservarla. El objetivo de este artículo es mostrar cómo y porqué se llega a estas diferencias tan marcadas. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Naharaim Jahrgang: 10 Heft: 2 Seiten: 175-194.