This open access book provides the first explicit case study for an application of the method of reflective equilibrium (RE), using it to develop and defend a precautionary principle. It thereby makes an important and original contribution to questions of philosophical method and methodology. The book shows step-by-step how RE is applied, and develops a methodological framework which will be useful for everyone who wishes to use reflective equilibrium. With respect to precautionary principles, the book demonstrates how a rights-based precautionary (...) principle can be constructed and defended. The case study succeeds in demonstrating that RE can be successfully applied and puts real constraints on the justification process. This is all the more remarkable as the case study was designed as an open-ended process, without presupposing any specific results. This book will be highly relevant both to people interested in philosophical methodology and epistemology, as well as to researchers who are interested in using philosophical methods and tools and applying them to practical problems. (shrink)

This paper explores how consumers’ ethical food consumption practices, mediated by mobile phone applications (apps), are transformed into digital data. Based on a review of studies on the digitalization of ethical consumption practices and food apps, we find that previous research, while valuable, fails to acknowledge and critically examine the digital labor required to perform digitalized ethical food consumption. In this paper, we call for research on how digital labor underlies the digitalization of ethical food consumption and develop a conceptual (...) framework that supports this research agenda. Our proposed conceptual framework builds on three interconnected analytical concepts—datafication, affordances and digital labor—that enable the study of digital labor as an infrastructural element of digitalized food consumption. We illustrate our conceptual framework through our previous research concerning Buycott, a US-based mobile app whose stated aim is to facilitate consumers’ ethical purchasing decisions. Using the walkthrough method, we consider how the Buycott app engages user-generated data and what implications this holds for consumers. The app’s infrastructure, we suggest, connects ethical consumption and digital labor. A richer understanding of the digital food economy, we propose, enables social scientists not only to elucidate how consumers engage in digital labor, but also to contribute to the development of new data governance structures in the digital food economy. We therefore call for social scientists interested in food, consumption and the digital economy to contribute to a new research agenda for studying everyday food digitalization by empirically examining how ethical consumption apps implicate ethical consumers’ work. (shrink)

Reflective equilibrium —the idea that we have to justify our judgments and principles through a process of mutual adjustment—is taken to be a central method in philosophy. Nonetheless, conceptions of RE often stay sketchy, and there is a striking lack of explicit and traceable applications of it. This paper presents an explicit case study for the application of an elaborate RE conception. RE is used to reconstruct the arguments from Thomson’s paper “Turning the Trolley” for why a bystander must not (...) divert a runaway trolley from five workmen onto one. Analyzing Thomson’s resulting position with the RE-criteria has two main results: Firstly, the adjustment of one of her commitments can be defended. Secondly, no justified position in RE was reached. With respect to RE as a method, the main results from this application are: There is at least one conception of RE that is sufficiently specified to be applicable; the RE criteria put real constraints on the process of justification; and an explicit application of RE has benefits in terms of clarity while at the same time providing guidance for how the justificatory process could be continued. (shrink)

This book offers the first study that relates the works of Hegel and Husserl. It also offers a timely philosophical description of the Western world in crisis. The author explores how Husserl radicalises Hegel's philosophy by providing an account of historical movement as open.

We used a multi-dimensional framework to assess current stereotypes of men and women. Specifically, we sought to determine (1) how men and women are characterized by male and female raters, (2) how men and women characterize themselves, and (3) the degree of convergence between self-characterizations and charcterizations of one’s gender group. In an experimental study, 628 U.S. male and female raters described men, women, or themselves on scales representing multiple dimensions of the two defining features of gender stereotypes, agency and (...) communality: assertiveness, independence, instrumental competence, leadership competence (agency dimensions), and concern for others, sociability and emotional sensitivity (communality dimensions). Results indicated that stereotypes about communality persist and were equally prevalent for male and female raters, but agency characterizations were more complex. Male raters generally descibed women as being less agentic than men and as less agentic than female raters described them. However, female raters differentiated among agency dimensions and described women as less assertive than men but as equally independent and leadership competent. Gender stereotypes also were evident in self-ratings, with female raters rating themselves as less agentic than male raters and male raters rating themselves as less communal than female raters, although there were exceptions (e.g., no differences in independence and sociability self-ratings for men and women). Comparisons of self-ratings and ratings of men and women in general indicated that women tended to characterize themselves in more stereotypic terms – as less assertive and less competent in leadership – than they characterized others in their gender group. Men, in contrast, characterized themselves in less stereotypic terms – as more communal. Overall, our results show that a focus on facets of agency and communality can provide deeper insights about stereotype content than a focus on overall agency and communality. (shrink)

This article deals with women-centred prose texts of the 1990s and 2000s in Russia written by women, and focuses especially on generation narratives. By this term the author means fictional texts that explore generational relations within families, from the perspective of repressed experiences, feelings and attitudes in the Soviet period. The selected texts are interpreted as narrating and conceptualizing the consequences of patriarchal ideology for relations between mothers and daughters and for reconstructing connections between Soviet and post-Soviet by revisiting and (...) remembering especially the gaps and discontinuities between (female) generations. The cases discussed are Liudmila Petrushevskaia’s ‘povest’ Vremia noch [The Time: Night] (1991), Liudmila Ulitskaia’s novel Medeia i ee deti [Medea and her Children] (1996) and Elena Chizhova’s novel Vremia zhenshchin [The Time of Women] (2009). These novels reflect on the one hand the woman-centredness and novelty of representation in women’s prose writing in the post-Soviet period. On the other hand, the author suggests that they reflect the diverse methods of representing the Soviet era and experience through generation narratives. The texts reassess the past through intimate, tactile memories and perceptions, and their narration through generational plots draws attention to the process of working through, which needs to be done in contemporary Russia. The narratives touch upon the untold stories of those who suffered in silence or hid the family secrets from the officials, in order to save the family. The narration delves into the different layers of experience and memory, conceptualizing them in the form of multiple narrative perspectives constructing different generations and traditions. In this way they convey the ‘secrets’ hidden in the midst of everyday life routines and give voice to the often silent resistance of women towards patriarchal and repressive ideology. The new women’s prose of the 1980s–90s and the subsequent trend of women-centred narratives and generation narratives employ conceptual metaphors of reassessing, revisiting and remembering the cultural, experiential, and emotional aspects of the past, Soviet lives. (shrink)

Philosophy, Iranian. ; Mysticism -- Iran. ; Islamic philosophy--Iran. ; Philosophers -- Iran.

The literature states that both situational and individual factors contribute to corrupt behavior. This study investigates the influence of rarely empirically investigated situational factors - the size of the bribe, time pressure, and the degree of abstractness of the business code - on the Model of Corrupt Action that describes the subjective decision making process of corrupt actors. To test the effects, I used an experimental simulation design. Only few effects were found. Thus, my results show a certain robustness of (...) corrupt behavior against the examined situational influences. Based on these results, I discuss implications for the prevention of corruption in organizations. (shrink)

Using diversity climate theory and research, this paper examines the relationships among an organization’s actions which indicate a value for age diversity and potential applicants’ reactions toward that organization. Specifically, we investigate the interactive effects of an organization’s age diversity, an organization’s age diversity management practices, and potential applicants’ individual attitudes toward age diversity on two outcome variables, organizational attractiveness and expected age discrimination. We conducted an experimental survey study with a sample of 244 German employees likely to be in (...) the job market again in their careers. Organizational age diversity and age diversity management practices were positively related to organizational attractiveness and negatively related to expected age discrimination. Results also support a three-way interaction of an organization’s age diversity, an organization’s age diversity management practices, and potential applicants’ attitudes toward age diversity on both dependent variables. The findings demonstrate the importance of considering individual attitudes toward age diversity in assessing the effectiveness of an organization’s age diversity and age diversity management practices. (shrink)

v. 1. Key figures and definitions -- v. 2. Basic themes and concepts -- v. 3. Existentialist aesthetics and philosophy of religion -- v. 4. Horizons of existentialism.

Autonomy has been recognised as a key principle in healthcare, but we still need to develop a consistent understanding of older people’s perceived autonomy in residential care. This study aimed to identify, describe and synthesise previous studies on the perceived autonomy of older people in residential care. Ethical approval was not required, as this was a review of published literature. We carried out an integrative review to synthesise previous knowledge published in peer-review journals in English up to September 2019. Electronic (...) and manual searches were conducted using the CINAHL, Philosopher’s Index, PubMed, SocINDEX, Scopus and Web of Science databases. The data were analysed using the constant comparison method. The review identified 46 studies. Perceived autonomy referred to the opportunities that older people had to make their own choices about their daily life in residential care, and achieving autonomy promoted both health and quality of life. Autonomy was linked to older people’s individual capacities, including their level of independence, physical and mental competence, personal characteristics, and whether relatives shared and supported their perceived autonomy. Professionals could facilitate or hinder older peoples’ autonomy in a number of ways, including providing opportunities for autonomy, how daily care needs and activities were managed, and controlling older people’s choices. Professionals’ characteristics, such as education and attitudes, and the older people’s living environments were also associated with their perceived autonomy and included organisational characteristics and physical and social care facilitators. Older people’s perceived autonomy promoted health and quality of life in residential care. However, their autonomy was associated with a number of protective and restrictive individual and environmental factors, which influenced whether autonomy was achieved. (shrink)

This paper describes ongoing work towards a rich analysis of the social contexts of neologism use in historical corpora, in particular the Corpora of Early English Correspondence, with research questions concerning the innovators, meanings and diffusion of neologisms. To enable this kind of study, we are developing new processes, tools and ways of combining data from different sources, including the Oxford English Dictionary, the Historical Thesaurus, and contemporary published texts. Comparing neologism candidates across these sources is complicated by the large (...) amount of spelling variation. To make the issues tractable, we start from case studies of individual suffixes and people. By developing tools aiding these studies, we build toward more general analyses. Our aim is to develop an open-source environment where information on neologism candidates is gathered from a variety of algorithms and sources, pooled, and presented to a human evaluator for verification and exploration. (shrink)

ZusammenfassungEines der medizinischen Felder, in dem die ethische Diskussion um die „wunscherfüllende Medizin“ am intensivsten geführt wird, ist die Reproduktionsmedizin, die die Erfüllung des „Kinderwunsches“ verspricht. Strittig ist besonders, ob Sterilität als Krankheit definiert wird, die eine medizinische Intervention rechtfertigt, ob sich aus der Sterilität oder Infertilität lediglich ein Abwehr- oder auch ein positives Anspruchsrecht auf medizinische Ressourcen ergibt, ob legitime Fortpflanzungsmedizin Grenzen hat. Nach einer Übersicht über Eckpunkte der nationalen und internationalen Debatte beschreiben wir im zweiten Teil Ansichten zum (...) Status ungewollter Kinderlosigkeit, zum Recht auf Fortpflanzungsmedizin und zur möglichen Legitimität ihrer Begrenzung anhand der Ergebnisse unserer vom Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (BMBF) geförderten Studien. Während der letzten fünf Jahre haben wir u. a. Paare mit und ohne Sterilitätsproblematik sowie verschiedene Expertengruppen qualitativ und standardisiert befragt. Die stark divergierenden Auffassungen konfrontieren wir im dritten Abschnitt mit internationalen Standards, zum anderen mit dem „Capability-Ansatz“ und dem freiheitsfunktionalen Liberalismus von Sen und Pauer-Studer. Dies ergibt, dass die Bereitstellung verschiedener Möglichkeiten der In-vitro-Fertilisations-(IVF-)Behandlung nicht lediglich einen Wunsch auf Elternschaft erfüllt sondern als die gesollte Erfüllung eines normativen Bedürfnissanspruchs begriffen werden muss. (shrink)

ZusammenfassungIn der aktuellen ethischen Debatte über die ärztliche Unterstützung bei der Selbsttötung von schwerkranken Patienten werden von unterschiedlicher Seite strafrechtliche Verbote gefordert. Ging es zunächst in der politischen Debatte ausschließlich um das Verbot organisierter Formen der Beihilfe zur Selbsttötung, werden nunmehr einerseits auch weitergehende strafrechtliche Verbote bis hin zum Verbot jeder Form von Beihilfehandlungen wie andererseits die ausdrückliche Zulassung der Suizidbeihilfe durch Ärzte gefordert. Ausgehend vom Ansatz, ein Verbot der Suizidassistenz im Strafgesetzbuch aufzunehmen, zeigt der Artikel, dass die Straflosigkeit von (...) Suizid und Suizidassistenz in Deutschland auf eine lange Tradition zurückgeht. Die Straflosigkeit der Beihilfe zum Suizid lässt sich dabei nicht nur systematisch, sondern auch inhaltlich begründen. Eine Strafbarkeit hingegen wäre weder rechtlich noch ethisch überzeugend darzustellen. Die Verfasser sprechen sich unter Bezugnahme auf einzelne Regelungsvorschläge gegen ein Strafverbot und schließlich für einen offenen Diskurs innerhalb der Ärzteschaft sowie für eine Neuregelung im Berufsrecht aus. (shrink)

Hate is widespread online, hits everyone, and carries negative consequences. Crowd moderation—user-assisted moderation through, e. g., reporting or counter-speech—is heralded as a potential remedy. We explore this potential by linking insights on online bystander interventions to the analogy of crowd moderation as a (lost) public good. We argue that the distribution of costs and benefits of engaging in crowd moderation forecasts a collective action problem. If the individual crowd member has limited incentive to react when witnessing hate, crowd moderation is (...) unlikely to manifest. We explore this argument empirically, investigating several preregistered hypotheses about the distribution of individual-level costs and benefits of response options to online hate using a large, nationally representative survey of Danish social media users (N = 24,996). In line with expectations, we find that bystander reactions, especially costly reactions, are rare. Furthermore, we find a positive correlation between exposure to online hate and withdrawal motivations, and a negative (n-shaped) correlation with bystander reactions. (shrink)

In his essay “The Crisis in the Teaching of Philosophy” Derrida writes “Philosophy would repeat itself and would reproduce its own tradition as the teaching of its own crisis and as the paideia of self-critique in general. This paideia goes hand in hand, and there is nothing fortuitous about this, with what I will call without taking it lightly, an imperialist self-confidence of philosophy.” In a properly Derridean fashion these lines are haunting for me. What is “imperialist” about philosophy; the (...) self-confidence? Is the confidence imperialist or is it the entire content of the philosophical tradition? Is there something colonial about not only dominating other disciplines and assigning them their regional ontologies, but also about the very discourse of philosophy itself? Of course, this very question presupposes there is such a thing as a “philosophical discourse” that has an identity which is itself a philosophical question. Is there such a thing as identity? If philosophy does not have this discursive identity, is it the crisis that is imperialist, crisis in the sense of constantly being separated from itself, always not having an identity or “never having an identity”? Perhaps in a different yet admittedly still problematic way, does philosophy dominate, colonize, thinking itself, both culturally and conceptually. Derrida continues his essay by forging an alliance between decolonization and deconstruction. It is a curious alliance because it both endorses and rejects philosophy (in a properly philosophical fashion): “If, like philosophy and the deconstruction of the philosophical, decolonization is interminable, it is because it cannot be effective either as simple mode of reappropriation or as a simple mode of opposition or overturning.” (Derrida 2002, 103). (shrink)

The basic idea underlying a precautionary principle is often summarized as “better safe than sorry.” Even if it is uncertain whether an activity will lead to harm, for example, to the environment or to human health, measures should be taken to prevent harm. This demand is partly motivated by the consequences of regulatory practices of the past. Often, chances of harm were disregarded because there was no scientific proof of a causal connection between an activity or substance and chances of (...) harm, for example, between asbestos and lung diseases. When this connection was finally established, it was often too late to prevent severe damage. However, it is highly controversial how the vague intuition behind “better safe than sorry” should be understood as a principle. As a consequence, we find a multitude of interpretations ranging from decision rules over epistemic principles to procedural frameworks. To acknowledge this diversity, it makes sense to speak of precautionary principles (PPs) in the plural. PPs are not without critices. For example, it has been argued that they are paralyzing, unscientific, or promote a culture of irrational fear. This article systematizes the different interpretations of PPs according to their functions, gives an overview about the main lines of argument in favor of PPs, and outlines the most frequent and important objections made to them. (shrink)

Transitioning to sustainable agricultural systems is imperative to meet the global Sustainable Development Goals. Achieving more sustainable agricultural production systems will require significant additional capital, however this cannot be covered by the current financial market setup, which dissociates public and private funders. Blended finance, where concessionary development-oriented funding is used to mobilize additional private capital, is essential. To ensure that the limited pool of concessionary funding is used efficiently and effectively, a shared understanding of the roles and limitations of public (...) and private funders is necessary. In this paper, we describe the high-level funding gap for sustainable agriculture, the general landscape of agricultural finance, and the concept and potential roles of blended finance in this context. This paper introduces the conditions under which different financing mechanisms can contribute to addressing barriers related to sustainable agriculture investments. It highlights that multiple funding modalities must be utilized in order to achieve agricultural investment at a meaningful level and encourages greater exploration of the range of blended financing structures to increase SDG-related agriculture investments. (shrink)

Levinas se kljub številnim antičnim mitološkim in širšim literarnim reminiscencam in kljub svoji zakoreninjenosti v judovskem duhovnem izročilu vedno znova vrača k izražanju, ki bi lahko doseglo vsakega človeka in ki bi bilo torej v tem smislu univerzalno, ker bi ga bilo mogoče izraziti z razumsko opredeljivimi pojmi. To pa ne pomeni, da bi želel omejiti filozofijo na golo formo logičnih kategorij in jo prikrajšati za njeno pravico do legitimnih vprašanj, ki od samih izvorov dalje ostajajo srčika filozofije v njenem (...) etimološkem pomenu, torej ljubezni do modrosti, ki je veliko več kot samo razum. Ali še bolje – Levinas bo širil polje razuma z novo pojmovnostjo, a njegova modrost ostaja še vedno razumna. V kakšnem smislu pa gre pri Levinasu za »drugačno razumost«, je mogoče odkrivati le postopoma, skozi plasti njegovega »palimpsesta«. (shrink)

Worlds are always in motion; what kind of movement is at stake? In this essay, I will argue that Heidegger moves beyond Hegel by making the concept of world central to phenomenology. But how do wor...

President Victor Yushchenko has issued a decree to the Ministry of Education and Science to develop and introduce the Ethics of Faith course in schools on September 1. What prompted him to do so is difficult to say. However, with his statement, he has given impetus to a new round of discussions on the religious education of students, which have been going on for several years.

Social robots as companions play an increasingly important role in our everyday life. However, reaching the full potential of social robots and the interaction between humans and robots requires permanent collection and processing of personal data of users, e.g. video and audio data for image and speech recognition. In order to foster user acceptance, trust and to address legal requirements as the General Data Protection Regulation of the EU, privacy needs to be integrated in the design process of social robots. (...) The Privacy by Design approach by Cavoukian indicates the relevance of a privacy-respecting development and outlines seven abstract principle.In this paper two methods as a hands-on guideline to fulfill the principles are presented and discussed in the content of the Privacy by Design approach. Privacy risks of a typical robot scenario are identified, analyzed and solutions are proposed on the basis of theseven types of privacyand theprivacy protection goals. (shrink)

This paper will analyze how and to what extent terrorists and violent extremistshave interacted with generative artificial intelligence so far and identify potentialways in which they could misuse generative AI in the future. It is therefore necessaryto question assumptions that terrorist and violent extremist actors will quickly adoptgenerative AI solely based on an assessment of the capabilities it may offer. Althoughresearch has shown that technological capability and availability are key drivers of terroristinnovation, terrorist and violent extremist actors also assess any (...) new technologyon its compatibility (with both their modus operandi and ideology), relative complexity,cost, and the context in which they are operating. Understanding these factors, both inisolation and in relation to one another, will be a key aspect in monitoring the extent towhich terrorists and violent extremists adopt generative AI tools. In doing so, the paperwill seek to identify a likely trajectory for the abuse of this technology by terrorist actorsas well as conclude with some initial recommendations for policymakers. (shrink)

How should we proceed when searching for justified answers to normative questions? A prominent proposal is to use the method of reflective equilibrium (RE). Its basic Idea—that we should start from our existing judgments about relevant cases and bring them into equilibrium with systematic principles—is readily recited, but beyond that, conceptions of RE often stay sketchy. RE is seldom explicitly implemented, which makes it difficult to critically evaluate the method and to assess its potential. In my dissertation, I present the (...) first explicit and detailed case study for an application of RE, using it to develop and defend a precautionary principle. -/- The dissertation is divided in two parts, a theoretical and an applied part. In part I, I introduce and operationalize a specific conception of RE. I first describe the central elements of RE by drawing on the most elaborate and fleshed-out conceptions of RE that can be found in the literature. Then, I survey and analyze previous applications of RE in order to both learn from them and identify desiderata for my own case study. Based on a small-scale, exploratory case study, the method is further concretized and operationalized for the implementation in my main case study on the justification of a precautionary principle. -/- In part II, this operationalization is tested in a complex case study that aims at justifying a precautionary principle which is applicable to problems arising from global climate change. In order to be able to select relevant commitments about central problems concerning precautionary principles (PPs), I start with a literature survey. The survey gives an overview on existing proposals for PPs, on which grounds they are defended, and the main objections against them. On this basis, I develop and describe the initial setup for the case study, which is conducted in three main steps and allows to examine different aspects of a RE-application. Thereby, I show that RE can be applied successfully to real problems. I go on to discuss a number of points that are not given sufficient attention in the RE literature so far. With respect to precautionary principles, I show how the commonly discussed principles fail to do justice to ethical considerations, and argue that the application of such principles should instead be triggered by threats of rights violations. (shrink)

We view agrobiodiversity as a social-ecological phenomenon and, therefore, an example of nature–gender relations within agrarian change, including social, economic, political and technical changes in agriculture and rural areas. As a result of the industrialization of agriculture, nature–gender relations in the field of agrobiodiversity have become characterized by separation processes such as conservation versus use or subsistence versus commodity production. We argue that the sustainable development paradigm, as currently implemented in European Common Agricultural Policy through the concept of multifunctionality, does (...) not necessarily overcome separation tendencies and lead towards integration, despite its claim to bring together different ecological, economic and social needs. In our paper we critically reflect this observation and develop a theory-based analytical framework at the interface of nature and gender relations. For analytical purposes we distinguish between three different agrarian structures and focus on the development of two separation tendencies within them and their effects on agrobiodiversity. Concerning nature, we discuss the effects of separating agrobiodiversity conservation and use. With regard to gender, we discuss the separation of subsistence and commodity production. Against this background, we claim for new rural economic rationalities characterized by processes whose qualitative, material and value dimensions maintain agrobiodiversity. (shrink)