In What Is Thought? Eric Baum proposes a computational explanation of thought.

Dieser Band ist der erste von drei Bänden kleiner Schriften Manfred Baums, die auch schwer zugängliche oder bisher unveröffentlichte Vorträge, Aufsätze und Artikel zur Geschichte der Philosophie versammeln. Er enthält Arbeiten zur theoretischen Philosophie Kants und zu ihrer Rezeption.

This paper discusses means for promoting artificial intelligence that is designed to be safe and beneficial for society. The promotion of beneficial AI is a social challenge because it seeks to motivate AI developers to choose beneficial AI designs. Currently, the AI field is focused mainly on building AIs that are more capable, with little regard to social impacts. Two types of measures are available for encouraging the AI field to shift more toward building beneficial AI. Extrinsic measures impose constraints (...) or incentives on AI researchers to induce them to pursue beneficial AI even if they do not want to. Intrinsic measures encourage AI researchers to want to pursue beneficial AI. Prior research focuses on extrinsic measures, but intrinsic measures are at least as important. Indeed, intrinsic factors can determine the success of extrinsic measures. Efforts to promote beneficial AI must consider intrinsic factors by studying the social psychology of AI research communities. (shrink)

A look at the ethics of nationalism and the modern state. In simple language, Gregory Baum discusses the writings of four men whose nationalism was shaped by their religion and their time: Martin Buber, Mahatma Gandhi, Paul Tillich and Jacques Grand'Maison.

Markus Baum widmet sich zweier Begründungs- und Theorieformen: der Kommunikationstheorie Habermas’ und der älteren Kritischen Theorie. Sein Ziel ist es, aufzuzeigen, dass der Anspruch der Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns nur zu erfüllen ist, wenn spezifische Intentionen der älteren Kritischen Theorie in den Rahmen der Theorie Habermas’ überführt werden. Von dieser Diskussion ausgehend werden die Methode der hermeneutischen Interpretation, der Begriff des sozialen Kampfes und der Bereich des Ästhetischen behutsam im Paradigma der Intersubjektivität verortet, sodass sie nicht in Widerspruch zu (...) dessen axiomatischen Annahmen geraten. Die Rückgewinnung der Intentionen der älteren Kritischen Theorie bahnt den Weg zu einer Kritischen Gesellschaftstheorie der Kommunikation. (shrink)

The Company They Keep advances a new way of thinking about Supreme Court decision-making. In so doing, it explains why today's Supreme Court is the first ever in which lines of ideological division are also partisan lines between justices appointed by Republican and Democratic presidents.

The National Science Foundation's Second Merit Criterion, or Broader Impacts Criterion , was introduced in 1997 as the result of an earlier Congressional movement to enhance the accountability and responsibility as well as the effectiveness of federally funded projects. We demonstrate that a robust understanding and appreciation of NSF BIC argues for a broader conception of research ethics in the sciences than is currently offered in Responsible Conduct of Research training. This essay advocates augmenting RCR education with training regarding broader (...) impacts. We demonstrate that enhancing research ethics training in this way provides a more comprehensive understanding of the ethics relevant to scientific research and prepares scientists to think not only in terms of responsibly conducted science, but also of the role of science in responding to identified social needs and in adhering to principles of social justice. As universities respond to the mandate from America COMPETES to “provide training and oversight in the responsible and ethical conduct of research”, we urge institutions to embrace a more adequate conception of research ethics, what we call the Ethical Dimensions of Scientific Research, that addresses the full range of ethical issues relevant to scientific inquiry, including ethical issues related to the broader impacts of scientific research and practice. (shrink)

Experiments may contribute to understanding the basic processes of cultural evolution. We drew features from previous laboratory research with small groups in which traditions arose during several generations. Groups of four participants chose by consensus between solving anagrams printed on red cards and on blue cards. Payoffs for the choices differed. After 12 min, the participant who had been in the experiment the longest was removed and replaced with a naı¨ve person. These replacements, each of which marked the end of (...) a generation, continued for 10 – 15 generations, at which time the day’s session ended. Time-out duration, which determined whether the group earned more by choosing red or blue, and which was fixed for a day’s session, was varied across three conditions to equal 1, 2, or 3 min. The groups developed choice traditions that tended toward maximizing earnings. The stronger the dependence between choice and earnings, the stronger was the tradition. Once a choice tradition evolved, groups passed it on by instructing newcomers, using some combination of accurate information, mythology, and coercion. Among verbal traditions, frequency of mythology varied directly with strength of the choice tradition. These methods may be applied to a variety of research questions. D 2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. (shrink)

Kant’s solution for the problem of freedom of the will rests on his transcendental idealism and its differentiation of appearances and things in themselves. Human beings, with their bodies and observable inner and outer activities, are objects of perception (empirical intuition) and therefore appearances. These are only the appearances of their noumenal selves. Human beings are determined by laws of nature in all their perceivable alterations which include all their actions, but their noumenal selves, not being in time, are not (...) determined by the necessity of causal laws of nature, but can be determined by the moral law of their pure practical reason which they give to themselves. The actions of the will, observable volitions and external actions, can therefore, at the same time, be under the necessitating law of nature, i.e. be unfree, and, as appearances of the self-determination of their noumenal will (by fulfilling the demands of the moral law), be free. Two professors of Jena University, Ulrich and Schmid, accept part of Kant’s transcendental idealism but contend that the many transgressions of the moral law in human acting must have their noumenal reason in the agent’s intelligible character or in the intelligible substrate of nature. This theory is called “intelligible fatalism”. (shrink)

Recent work in AI ethics often calls for AI to advance human values and interests. The concept of “AI for people” is one notable example. Though commendable in some respects, this work falls short by excluding the moral significance of nonhumans. This paper calls for a shift in AI ethics to more inclusive paradigms such as “AI for the world” and “AI for the universe”. The paper outlines the case for more inclusive paradigms and presents implications for moral philosophy and (...) computer science work on AI ethics. (shrink)

Artificial intelligence experts are currently divided into “presentist” and “futurist” factions that call for attention to near-term and long-term AI, respectively. This paper argues that the presentist–futurist dispute is not the best focus of attention. Instead, the paper proposes a reconciliation between the two factions based on a mutual interest in AI. The paper further proposes realignment to two new factions: an “intellectualist” faction that seeks to develop AI for intellectual reasons and a “societalist faction” that seeks to develop AI (...) for the benefit of society. The paper argues in favor of societalism and offers three means of concurrently addressing societal impacts from near-term and long-term AI: advancing societalist social norms, thereby increasing the portion of AI researchers who seek to benefit society; technical research on how to make any AI more beneficial to society; and policy to improve the societal benefits of all AI. In practice, it will often be advantageous to emphasize near-term AI due to the greater interest in near-term AI among AI and policy communities alike. However, presentist and futurist societalists alike can benefit from each others’ advocacy for attention to the societal impacts of AI. The reconciliation between the presentist and futurist factions can improve both near-term and long-term societal impacts of AI. (shrink)

Cet ouvrage est construit autour d'un chapitre (texte original) de Judith Butler sur l'éthique de la non-violence. En réponse se construisent quatre réflexions philosophiques. Mylène Botbol-Baum présente le collectif à partir de sa traduction du texte de Judith Butler, et aborde la question du sujet et de la norme à partir de la lecture butlerienne de Levinas et Arendt, sur la question des limites de la légitimité de la violence pour une éthique de la relationalité. Jean de Munck traite (...) une lecture croisée de Benjamin et Butler sur la violence. Romildo Pineiro et Jose Erraruz off rent une lecture historique et politique du concept de violence et y confrontent l'interprétation de la non violence dans le texte de Butler. Trois textes plus sociologiques suivent sur l'impact de la non-violence, dans une perspective qui vise à " défaire le genre " dans le cadre sociopolitique critique des vulnérabilités, dans le cadre du travail des femmes migrantes (Ghaliya Dejelloul) ou du travail domestique non rémunéré (Anna Safuta), à partir d'une enquête sur la mobilité spatiale des femmes dans les zones pré-urbaines d'Alger ou de Bruxelles, off rant une analyse sur l'hostilité masculine et le rôle du discours religieux dans la légitimation de cette violence. Matthieu de Nanteuil conclut le volume sur la question de la violence et de la sensibilité politique en mettant à jour la théorie de la démocratie radicale chez Judith Butler. Il sera donc question dans ce volume de penser la non-violence à partir d'une approche fondée sur la normalisation des corps, en réintroduisant le sujet de la vie comme interlocuteur critique du sujet de la norme en démocratie. (shrink)

A major approach to the ethics of artificial intelligence is to use social choice, in which the AI is designed to act according to the aggregate views of society. This is found in the AI ethics of “coherent extrapolated volition” and “bottom–up ethics”. This paper shows that the normative basis of AI social choice ethics is weak due to the fact that there is no one single aggregate ethical view of society. Instead, the design of social choice AI faces three (...) sets of decisions: standing, concerning whose ethics views are included; measurement, concerning how their views are identified; and aggregation, concerning how individual views are combined to a single view that will guide AI behavior. These decisions must be made up front in the initial AI design—designers cannot “let the AI figure it out”. Each set of decisions poses difficult ethical dilemmas with major consequences for AI behavior, with some decision options yielding pathological or even catastrophic results. Furthermore, non-social choice ethics face similar issues, such as whether to count future generations or the AI itself. These issues can be more important than the question of whether or not to use social choice ethics. Attention should focus on these issues, not on social choice. (shrink)

A recent exchange on Benatar’s book Better never to have been between Doyal and Benatar discusses Benatar’s bold claim that people should not be brought into existence. Here, I expand the discussion of original position that the exchange focused on. I also discuss the asymmetries, between benefit and harm and between existence and non-existence, upon which Benatar’s bold claim rests. In both discussions, I show how Benatar’s bold claim can be rejected.

Studies of callosal sexual differentiation have concentrated on global measures of callosal size, using the rat as a model for studies of potential hormonal mechanisms. It is time to shift the study of callosal sexual differentiation to a more cellular level. Finally, there are potential problems with using the female rat as the primary model for understanding hormonal mechanisms during postnatal life.

Contents, We are the Church, New Congregationalism / Harold D. Hunter; Faustino Teixeira; Miroslav Volf. -- Healing and deliverance / Cheryl Bridges Johns; Vergil Elizondo; Elisabeth Moltmann-Wendel. -- Tongues and prophecy / Frank D. Macchia; Hermann Ha ring; Michael Welker. --Praying in the spirit / Steven J. Land; Constantine Fouskas; David Power. -- Born again, baptism and the spirit / Juan Sepu lveda; James D. G. Dunn; Michel Quesnel.

This work seeks to shift the focus of medical practice from disease to people, emphasizing a person's need to be recognized, understood and treated with respect and sensitivity. It also tackles questions about ethical considerations and the recognition of human values.

The question, “Does the chimpanzee have a theory of mind?” is logically identical to the question, “Does the chimpanzee have a soul?” It is a peculiarity of our culture that we talk about anyone having a mind, and such talk is unhelpful for a science of behavior. The label “killjoy hypothesis” is an ad hominem attack.

Psychiatry is rapidly adopting digital phenotyping and artificial intelligence/machine learning tools to study mental illness based on tracking participants’ locations, online activity, phone and text message usage, heart rate, sleep, physical activity, and more. Existing ethical frameworks for return of individual research results (IRRs) are inadequate to guide researchers for when, if, and how to return this unprecedented number of potentially sensitive results about each participant’s real-world behavior. To address this gap, we convened an interdisciplinary expert working group, supported by (...) a National Institute of Mental Health grant. Building on established guidelines and the emerging norm of returning results in participant-centered research, we present a novel framework specific to the ethical, legal, and social implications of returning IRRs in digital phenotyping research. Our framework offers researchers, clinicians, and Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) urgently needed guidance, and the principles developed here in the context of psychiatry will be readily adaptable to other therapeutic areas. (shrink)

At the centre of discussion lies the reception of Plato’s philosophy, particularly his theory of Ideas, in Kant’s moral philosophy, his ethics and his doctrine of right. Kant saw himself as a follower of Platonism insofar as its anti-empiri­cist principles of human conduct are concerned, although his own version of practical rationalism differs considerably from Plato’s. This is also true of Kant’s conception of freedom and of human rights. The greatest impact on Kant’s moral philosophy is due to the doctrine (...) of the two worlds, the mundus sensibilis and the mundus intelligibilis, which did not originate in Plato himself, but in the Jewish Platonist Philo of Alexandria. Kant reinterpreted this doctrine by taking the intelligible world as a moral world consisting of free rational agents who ought to transform the empirical world of human society and history according to the norms and standards of moral laws. This was meant to be a programme for a moral reform of the human world, both with regard to individual moral­ity and to the cosmopolitical task of the establishment of an international order of legal institutions. Kant’s practical Platonism insists on the creation of a moral world order through human actions that take their lead from pure practical reason. (shrink)

Buddhist Manuscripts from Central Asia: The British Library Sanskrit Fragments, vol. II. Edited by Seishi Karashima and Klaus Wille. Tokyo: International Research Institute for Advanced Buddhology, 2009. Vol. II.1: pp. 668. Vol. II.2: 382 plates.

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic had an impact on the global economy, including the provision of health services, with medical facilities and patients cancelling or postponing medical appointments. An alternative to in-person appointments was through the available forms of telemedicine. Scientific reports around the world have suggested that the accessibility and quality of health services declined. The aim of this study was to investigate the accessibility and quality of health services in Poland and to verify whether there were differences (...) between men and women in this respect. The study was based on the authors’ own survey questionnaire filled in by 265 respondents, including 181 women, 82 men, and 2 persons without a defined gender. The study revealed that during the COVID-19 pandemic, the accessibility and quality of health services declined. Additionally, women were more likely to use general and specialist health services than men, but a comparison of changes in the assessment of accessibility and quality of services by gender revealed no differences in the assessment of accessibility and quality. (shrink)

This article contends that Axel Honneth’s critical social theory provides a compelling general framework with which to map out the political sociology of social equality in a way that takes due account of class-based inequalities, social identity differences, and ecological challenges of contemporary globalized societies. Honneth joins an emphasis on equal respect for all—a core aspect of equality in modern democratic societies—with an account of social esteem recognition—which establishes evaluative distinctions among people—in a way that illuminates the interplay of equality (...) and difference. This is so, I argue, even though Honneth himself has focused on struggles for recognition and social freedom rather than equality, and despite some notable limitations of his political sociology. (shrink)

Dieser Band ist der dritte von drei Bänden kleiner Schriften Manfred Baums, die auch schwer zugängliche oder bisher unveröffentlichte Vorträge, Aufsätze und Artikel zur Geschichte der Philosophie versammeln. Er enthält Arbeiten zu Hegel und Hegel-verwandten Themen, sowie Untersuchungen zu Schelling, Hölderlin, Marx und Nietzsche in ihrer Beziehung zur hegelschen und kantschen Philosophie.