continent. 1.3 (2011): 208-212. … intervals of destructuring paradoxically carry the momentum for the ongoing process by which thought and perception are brought into relation toward transformative action. —Brian Massumi, Parables for the Virtual: Movement, Affect, Sensation 1 Facing a blank canvas or blank page is a moment of pure potential, one that can be enervating or paralyzing. It causes a pause, a hesitation, in anticipation of the moment of inception—even of one that never comes. The implication is that the (...) blank is yours in that moment, and it calls on you to act on it, to think into it, to create on it. Each blank canvas gives you time, of an undefined length, to transform that canvas’ inherent potential into a work. This two-dimensional plane of potential can be projected into a space, which the body can then occupy. When you “destructure” a space in the same way, prepare it to be a blank, much as you build a canvas, you allow your entire body to enter the space of potential, and you rest in anticipation of work, like the hand poised above the page. Artists have found that the deliberate creation of that space of potential through sealing the space and painting it white, thereby erasing details and distractions, can be such a transformative experience as to help define their whole practice. The cessation of distraction, the absence of indicator that a “blanked” workspace provides allows for a new presence of mind, it gives them the room, literally, to move into their work, and from there to move their work into the world. The workspace for the artist, the studio, is often perceived as a lab-like condensation of the gallery or museum, the traditional and idealized white cube. Similarly, with the blank page, a concrete relation between space and time comes forward as the intentional simplification of the architecture changes behavior and perception within the space. The work of “blanking” the studio space is a meditative reduction, an erasure, and in a way, an attempt at drawing away from the world beyond the studio - the sealed space is meant to recede from reality, to become abstracted by its willed lack of details and distractions. Within that space the time for a new beginning is made more present, more attainable, and the focus it fosters becomes another tool to aid creation. At the formative moment of his artistic practice, Tom Friedman used the blank of his studio, saturated in white, sealed off from the world, to fight velocity. He describes how he projected his vision of the end goal, the museum - a place he believes to be defined by slow contemplation - onto his own studio experience. He then sat and reflected on common objects, one by one, framed by the blank box he had created. The domestic objects he brought into the space to study foreshadow his mature works, where often the quotidian object has a single additional element – his intense labor. Friedman makes discrete objects through absurdly intense and focused labor, epitomized, perhaps by his 1,000 hours of Staring , made from 1992-97: Tom Friedman. 1000 Hours of Staring (1992-1997) His labor, to use his own words, is his way to “bring all of who you are to the experience.” Friedman shares his labor, allows the slow, deliberate pace of his work born in the studio to penetrate the museum. Nothing seems effortless, or a gesture, the labor is apparent, displayed, and tangible. He gives us the labor, the personal investment in the physical that saved art for him, that divorced the work from the language he cites as a factor of alienation. When we see his work we do not see words, we see acts, we see objects. He has forced the studio as workspace into the exhibition space, as he stuffs hundreds of more hours of labor into his shows with each new piece, filling the space with material and labor, material and labor – his involvement, his investment, is his gift to us as the viewers, as he introduces the laborious and contemplative pace he feels belongs to the museum. He saves us also from the alienation of language, which first drove him into the sealed studio and away from the discourse of his school. He presents us with his real, the object which stands in stark contrast to the white slate of the studio, the sealed white box he started from, where his individual, self-contained objects begin and end, completed through the intensity of isolation, first of the individual artist, and then of the material he chooses to slowly, slowly, slowly work: Tom Friedman. Untitled (1992) In his in-depth analysis of galleries as a blank white cube, Brian O’Doherty emphasizes the religious connotations implied in the strict laws of the exhibition space and the valuation, aesthetics and elements of control he feels it imposes upon the work. Like Friedman, he recognizes the power of the restricted space – indicating the “perceptual fields of force” – that act on any object introduced into it. Going beyond Friedman’s assessment of the space as highly utilitarian for focusing his perception, O’Doherty emphasizes the rejection of the physical body of the artist or observer, saying that the cube allows for only observation - eyes and mind. He later parallels the picture frame as a psychological container for the artist with the room as the same for the observer. In both cases, this is an emphasis on the alienating nature of the relationship – just as the artist is kept out of the frame by the picture, in the gallery the art forces the body of the spectator out, calling for a self-referential purity. Patrick Ireland. White Cube (1998) O’Doherty makes a point of saying that the installation shot of the gallery without figures is “one of the icons of our visual culture.” In recent years, however, installation shots have begun to include figures, in some cases they are essential to understanding the scale and even the nature of the work, specifically with work that captures the experience of the space and the way that it varies from a white cube. The work of Olafur Eliasson is a case in point, as the Danish artist uses elements of scientific and natural phenomena to alter perception within the controlled gallery environment, tweaking and redirecting O’Doherty’s “perceptual fields of force” to make points about the act of seeing, or seeing yourself seeing, to quote the artist. This indicates a shift in the role of the artwork, not to exclude the body and stand discretely and self-sufficiently, but to include it, to manipulate it and to make the observer aware of the nature of that manipulation and the work’s ability to manipulate. Olafur Eliasson. 360º room for all colours (2002) So though in O’Doherty’s analysis, the intense blankness of the gallery pushed the observer out in favor of the artwork’s isolation, artists can replicate this inhumane sterility in their own workspace to focus their work on the influence of the gallery right from inception. This can be interpreted as an almost opposite understanding of the purpose of sealing and whitewashing the workspace as stated by Friedman. He sought a refuge from the critical language of the art school, and a space that, like the museum, gave him a protracted sense of time, and, he felt, welcomed him in, “to bring all of who you are,” as opposed to O’Doherty’s feeling that the museum was asking you, at least in body, to leave, and allow the work to take on its own life. Friedman does not seem to imply the tension with the cube and critical stance that O’Doherty prioritizes. Where Friedman finds a refuge, O’Doherty defines an opponent. In a third position, Robert Irwin describes his sealed studio space as “the world.” Though he made the same effort as Friedman to seal out all influences and distractions, he implies that he is in dialogue with the world through his own concentration and perception. This is reminiscent of the nature of the monad, as interpreted by Deleuze, a unity that envelops a multiplicity, a sealed container that contains the universe. He went through the same ritual described by Friedman, sealing up the space, painting it white, and then forcing himself to remain inside, staring at his own work, training his concentration relentlessly. But he found that the room became the distraction: …he became aware that a thin crack along the wall a few yards away from the canvas likewise exerted its presence; that when he plastered that crack over and repainted the wall, the canvas itself presented an entirely new aspect.2 The context was in a relentless dialogue with the work, and trying to neutralize that dialogue, to mute the conversation between space and object, became part of his ritual as he “fixed” his space each day in the hope of total concentration on the work. Ultimately, Irwin shaped the trajectory of his art by relinquishing the studio, establishing a post-studio practice, where the work is conceived and created out in the world, in dialogue with the world and reflective of the conditions it finds surrounding it. The white cube failed to ever achieve neutrality, his heightened concentration prevented him from ever neutralizing the space, so, instead of continuing to try to maintain the charade of a perfect blank, he acknowledged the unstoppable voice of place and turned all his efforts onto the object and the world, as a constant dialogue. Some artists push their studio space far from purity, domesticating it like a lair or a living room, and others destroy it, fill it with chaos or detritus, blacken or clutter it so as never to be starting from a blank, and thereby try to avoid the anxiety of facing that void. Similarly artists may never prepare a white canvas, a clean page, a marble block, or other form that is intentionally lacking, in order to try to escape the dialogue with emptiness. But Irwin, like O’Doherty, found an opponent in the white cube, and he learned not to fight it, rather he ended the conflict by making it an ally, an interlocutor, a collaborator. We can vainly strive to start from nothing, to find the lull, the clearing, and to always consider what we do in balance with the empty set. Somehow that intangible cloud of hazy nothingness, that softness of a lapse continually offers a place to bounce off of, to react to, to wrestle with, to rest with, in tension, or a place to begin. Robert Irwin. Excursus: Homage to the Square3 (1998) NOTES 1 Massumi. Parables for the Virtual: Movement, Affect, Sensation. p271. 2 MOMA, NY. Eliasson, 360 ? Room for All Colours . Installation. 2002. (shrink)

_The first unauthorized look at the philosophy behind _Heroes_, one of TV's most popular shows_ When ordinary individuals from around the world inexplicably develop superhuman abilities, they question who they are, struggle to cope with new responsibilities, and decide whether to use their new power for good or for evil. Every episode of Tim Kring's hit TV show _Heroes_ is a philosophical quandary. _Heroes and Philosophy_ is the first book to analyze how philosophy makes this show so compelling. It lets (...) you examine questions crucial to our existence as thinking, rational beings. Is the Company evil, or good? Does Hiro really have a destiny? Do we? Is it okay to lie in order to hide your powers or save the world? _Heroes and Philosophy_ offers answers to these and other intriguing questions. Brings the insight of history's philosophical heavyweights such as Plato and Nietzche to _Heroes_ characters and settings Adds a fun and fascinating dimension to your understanding of the show Expands your thinking about _Heroes_ as the series expands from graphic and text novels to action figures and a video game Whether you're new to _Heroes_ or have been a fan since day one, this book will take your enjoyment of the show to the next level. (shrink)

The Cyrenaics assert that (1) particular pleasure is the highest good, and happiness is valued not for its own sake, but only for the sake of the particular pleasures that compose it; (2) we should not forego present pleasures for the sake of obtaining greater pleasure in the future. Their anti-eudaimonism and lack of future-concern do not follow from their hedonism. So why do they assert (1) and (2)? After reviewing and criticizing the proposals put forward by Annas, Irwin (...) and Tsouna, I offer two possible reconstructions. In the first reconstruction, I explain claim (1) as follows: happiness has no value above and beyond the value of the particular pleasures that compose it. Also, there is no "structure" to happiness. The Cyrenaics are targeting the thesis that happiness involves having the activities of one's life forming an organized whole, the value of which cannot be reduced to the value of the experiences within that life. I explain claim (2) as follows: a maximally pleasant life is valuable, but the best way to achieve it is to concentrate heedlessly on the present. In the second reconstruction, the good is radically relativized to one's present preferences. The Cyrenaics assert that we desire some particular pleasure, e.g., the pleasure that results from having this drink now. Thus, our telos -- which is based upon our desires -- is this particular pleasure, not (generic) 'pleasure' or the maximization of pleasure over our lifetime. As our desires change, so does our telos. I conclude that the scanty texts we have do not allow us to decide conclusively between these reconstructions, but I give some reasons to support the second over the first. (shrink)

This paper asks whether workers’ experience of working with new technologies and workers’ perceived threats of new technologies are associated with expected well-being. Using survey data for 25 OECD countries we find that both experiences of new technologies and threats of new technologies are associated with more concern about expected well-being. Controlling for the negative experiences of COVID-19 on workers and their macroeconomic outlook both mitigate these findings, but workers with negative experiences of working alongside and with new technologies still (...) report lower expected well-being. (shrink)

BackgroundElectronic patient record (EPR) technology is a key enabler for improvements to healthcare service and management. To ensure these improvements and the means to achieve them are socially and ethically desirable, careful consideration of the ethical implications of EPRs is indicated. The purpose of this scoping review was to map the literature related to the ethics of EPR technology. The literature review was conducted to catalogue the prevalent ethical terms, to describe the associated ethical challenges and opportunities, and to identify (...) the actors involved. By doing so, it aimed to support the future development of ethics guidance in the EPR domain.MethodsTo identify journal articles debating the ethics of EPRs, Scopus, Web of Science, and PubMed academic databases were queried and yielded 123 eligible articles. The following inclusion criteria were applied: articles need to be in the English language; present normative arguments and not solely empirical research; include an abstract for software analysis; and discuss EPR technology.ResultsThe medical specialty, type of information captured and stored in EPRs, their use and functionality varied widely across the included articles. Ethical terms extracted were categorised into clusters ‘privacy’, ‘autonomy’, ‘risk/benefit’, ‘human relationships’, and ‘responsibility’. The literature shows that EPR-related ethical concerns can have both positive and negative implications, and that a wide variety of actors with rights and/or responsibilities regarding the safe and ethical adoption of the technology are involved.ConclusionsWhile there is considerable consensus in the literature regarding EPR-related ethical principles, some of the associated challenges and opportunities remain underdiscussed. For example, much of the debate is presented in a manner more in keeping with a traditional model of healthcare and fails to take account of the multidimensional ensemble of factors at play in the EPR era and the consequent need to redefine/modify ethical norms to align with a digitally-enabled health service. Similarly, the academic discussion focuses predominantly on bioethical values. However, approaches from digital ethics may also be helpful to identify and deliberate about current and emerging EPR-related ethical concerns. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Philosophers' Walks by Bruce BaughTim IngoldBaugh, Bruce. Philosophers' Walks. Routledge, 2022. 252pp.Yesterday evening, much to my satisfaction, I finished reading Bruce Baugh's Philosophers' Walks. The author ends by putting down his pen. It is time, he declares, "to put my boots on and walk out into the world" (236). For me, it was bedtime, but knowing that I was to write this review, I resolved to sleep on (...) it. On waking, I set out, as is my wont, for the short walk I take every morning before breakfast. The walk itself is nothing special: it takes in the streets of my neighborhood and a nearby park. Yet every day is different as the weather changes, trees come in and out of leaf, blooms flourish and wilt in front gardens, children on their way to school throng the streets in term-time only to vanish in vacations. Lately, a nineteenth-century fountain in the park has been lovingly restored, and every morning I am refreshed by its water-jets and tinkly sound. Most days I am writing in my head, on whatever I have on the go at the time. Walking briskly and on my own, I find that words that had tied me in knots the day before miraculously straighten themselves out with a rhythm and fluency matching my pace. I cannot, however, walk and write at the same time. It is physically impossible. So as the words come, I have to keep repeating them to myself, until I make it home. With no time to lose, I seize notebook, pencil, and spectacles to jot them down. Only when I have done so can I finally sit down to breakfast. And that's exactly what happened this morning. With my hastily scribbled notes, some good words, and the odd finished sentence, I am ready to write this review.I am not, of course, the first to have discovered the benefits of thinking-while-walking. Countless predecessors have done so before me, including some of the most celebrated figures of the past four centuries of European intellectual history. And so has Baugh. The idea behind his book is that if by walking, philosophers have arrived at many of their most cherished insights, then perhaps we could better take the measure of these insights not merely by reading their words but by retracing their steps, walking the same paths as they did. And this, precisely, is what [End Page 131] Baugh, often accompanied by his wife Diane Lindsay, set out to do. Each chapter, barring the introduction and conclusion, is devoted to one or sometimes two characters, and each blends reflection on their ideas and life-histories of walking with the author's recollection of attempting to follow in their footsteps, and of the experience and even self-knowledge gained from doing so. Some walks are in verdant countryside, or more spectacular Alpine scenery, others are in big cities like London and Paris. Baugh does not pretend that the walks of his chosen characters can be replicated exactly when so much has changed, in both rural areas and the urban fabric, since their heydays. Nor can we ever know exactly what was going through their heads at the time. It is nevertheless surprising how many echoes you can pick up from the past, so long as you keep your ears to the ground, and Baugh is an astute listener. For us, his readers, the book is an invitation to join in his travels, albeit at a distance, and by doing so, to enrich our understanding not only of his characters and of how they thought, but of ourselves as well.Though the book is called Philosophers' Walks, Baugh has cast his net wide to include characters for whom the epithet "poet," "artist," or "writer" might sooner come to mind than "philosopher." No matter: all such labels are a touch arbitrary, and it's the thought that counts. So here they are, in chronological order (not the order in which they appear in the book): Pierre Grassendi, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Søren Kierkegaard, Friedrich Nietzsche, Virginia Woolf, André Breton, Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de... (shrink)

This book provides an in-depth analysis of consumerism that draws from a wide range of theoretical, clinical and methodological approaches. Contributors demonstrate that consumerism and the culture that surrounds it exert profound and often undesirable effects on both people's individual lives and on society as a whole. Far from being distant influences, advertising, consumption, materialism and the capitalistic economic system affect personal, social and ecological well-being on many levels. Contributors also provide a variety of potential interventions for counteracting the negative (...) influence of consumerism. (shrink)

Values based practice is a radical view of the place of values in medicine which develops from a philosophical analysis of values, illness and the role of ethical principles. It denies two attractive and traditional views of medicine: that diagnosis is a merely factual matter and that the values that should guide treatment and management can be codified in principles. But it goes further in the adoption of a radical liberal view: that right or good outcome should be replaced by (...) right process. I describe each of these three claims but caution against the third. (shrink)

In The Biosemiotic Fundamentals of Aesthetics: Beauty is the Perfect Semiotic Fitting Kull makes a foray into the concept of Beauty. His target article is a welcome contribution not only for providing a biosemiotic notion of beauty but also as a trigger for further enquiry into the matter. Additionally, Kull delivers a new concept: Semiotic Fitting, shining new light on the Umwelt theory. My commentary embraces the challenge Kull presents. Offering an alternate view on beauty, as a matter, and product, (...) of cognition, I suggest reflecting on the philosophy of Alexander von Baumgarten, who coined the term “aesthetics”, offers rich insight that could extend and enrich the definition of beauty Kull presents. (shrink)

Michael and has argued that species have intrinsic essences. This paper rebuts Devitt’s arguments, but in so doing it shores up the anti-essentialist consensus in two ways that have more general interest. First, species membership can be explanatory even when species have no essences; that is, Tamsin’s membership of the tiger species can explain her stripyness, without this committing us to any further claim about essential properties of tigers. Second, even the views of species that appear most congenial to essentialism—namely (...) phenetic and genotypic cluster accounts—do not entail strong forms of intrinsic essentialism. (shrink)

Alberto Fragio, Martina Philippi und Josefa Ros Velasco (Hrsg.), Metaphorologie, Anthropologie, Phänomenologie. Neue Forschungen zum Nachlass Hans Blumenbergs, Freiburg u. a.: Karl Alber 2019.

Što je distinktivno filozofski problem opažanja? Ovdje se tvrdi da je to konflikt između prirode opažajnog iskustva kakva nam se intuitivno čini, te stanovitih mogućnosti koje su implicitne upravo u ideji iskustva: mogućnosti iluzije i halucinacije. Opažajno iskustvo čini nam se kao odnos prema svojim objektima, vrsta »otvorenosti prema svijetu« koja uključuje izravnu svijest postojećih objekata i njihovih svojstava. Ali ako netko može imati iskustvo iste vrste a da objekt nije tamo – halucinaciju objekta – onda izgleda da opažajno iskustvo (...) ne može esencijalno biti takav odnos. Ovo je fundamentalni filozofski problem opažanja; različite filozofijske teorije opažanja 20. i 21. stoljeća mogu se sagledati kao odgovori na to.What is the distinctively philosophical problem of perception? Here it is argued that it is the conflictbetween the nature of perceptual experience as it intuitively seems to us, and certain possibilitieswhich are implicit in the very idea of experience: possibilities of illusion and hallucination. Perceptualexperience seems to us to be a relation to its objects, a kind of “openness to the world” whichinvolves direct awareness of existing objects and their properties. But if one can have an experienceof the same kind without the object being there – a hallucination of an object – then it seems thatperceptual experience cannot essentially be such a relation. This is the fundamentally philosophicalproblem of perception; the various philosophical theories of perception in the 20th and 21st centuriescan be seen as responses to it. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Ethics & the Environment 10.2 (2005) 175-194 [Access article in PDF] Measure for Measure The Reliance of Human Knowledge on the Things of the World Tim Adamson When all things were in disorder, God created in each thing in relation to itself, and in all things in relation to each other, all the measures and harmonies which they could possibly receive. —Plato, Timaeus (69b) Is my body a thing, (...) is it an idea? It is neither, being the measurant of the things. We will therefore have to recognize an ideality that is not alien to the flesh, that gives it its axes, its depth, its dimensions. —Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1968, 152) The search for truths differs from the search for truth criteria in more ways than those that are immediately obvious. —M. C. Dillon (1997, 9) The notion that all knowledge is a form of measurement can be traced back to the Socratic insight that knowledge requires the presence of some standard against which things are measured. We cannot account for our knowledge of things, Socrates argued, without appealing to some prior capacity we have for recognizing, comparing, or measuring things in terms of something else, for example, a concept or definition. In the modern era, Kant extended this insight to include perception as such, [End Page 175] arguing that even though our perceptual experience seems to be direct and immediate, upon reflection we know that some process of mediation must be at work which enables us to have a stable experience of objects. Faced with such insights, we are compelled to ask how such measuring is possible. If experience and knowledge rely on some capacity for measurement, what is measurement and what does it entail?The most common contemporary answer to this question can be found in notion that our experience and knowledge are "constructed" by distinctly human, that is, cultural factors. Having abandoned Kant's notion of a priori knowledge and its various Idealist offshoots, contemporary constructivism nonetheless maintains that cultural structures (although not fixed or permanent ones) serve as the basic principles upon which experience and knowledge are built. Such a view has some merit, insofar as it enables us to acknowledge the mediated character of our experience, while also avoiding the problematic claims of traditional idealism. But as appealing as this view is, it raises the question of the place and role of nature in our experience. From a constructivist point of view, although we may acknowledge that our experience and knowledge depend in crucial ways upon natural elements and events, it can often seem naive to discuss the role of such natural factors within experience—except, that is, as we admit that nature itself is "constructed" by culture, for example, language, conceptual systems, theoretical constructs, ideology, political power, institutional practices, and so forth. That is, although we no longer accord cultural factors an a priori or absolute status, we remain convinced that in fact cultural norms play the final, determining role in shaping our experience. In the end, we have come to believe, it is culture that measures and defines nature, not vice versa.My aim in this essay is to articulate an alternative view of the measurement involved in human experience and knowledge, one which helps us to overcome the privileging of culture over nature that still plagues contemporary thought. My account is inspired by Merleau-Ponty's philosophy of the body, particularly his notion that the human body serves as a "measurant of things." There are two key components of this claim. First, it describes the body's general capacity for measurement, and does not appeal to any specific measure or standard of measurement. As a measurant, the body is not any particular measure; rather, it is a thing that measures, an element of the natural world that brings measurement to the [End Page 176] things it encounters, thus bringing meaning into our experience. Second, the body's capacity to measure shows how our natural being as bodies is inherently meaningful, because measurement is, as we shall see... (shrink)

This book offers a new account of the relationship between empiricism and the essay in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Exploring topics such as trust, testimony, virtue, and language, it offers new perspectives on connections between philosophy and literature, empiricism and transcendentalism, and Enlightenment and Romanticism.

This paper discusses a role playing ethics case suitable for business students in which participants must balance shareholder and stakeholder concerns. Students take on the role of operations manager and are challenged to consider the effects of their choices on the local society as they balance the demands of stockholders, employees, and family when the concerns of the groups come into conflict. The exercise helps students understand the need to consider the ethicalcomponents of business decisions and the difficulties of handling (...) values in conflict. Students learn more about their own values through playing the role of manager. Suggested discussion questions are provided. This note also reviews some of the extant literature on the goals of stakeholder versus shareholder wealth and the role of ethics, and it discusses areas of common ground between the stakeholder/shareholder theories. (shrink)

Stakeholder theory diverts attention from creating business success to concentrating on who share its fruits. But what right have stakeholders to make the claims they do? Perhaps a new model is needed. T.F.J. Ambler is Grand Metropolitan Senior Research Fellow at London Business School, Sussex Place, Regent's Park, London NW1 4SA, where Andrea Wilson completed her MBA in 1993. She is now a consultant in New York.

This article is a response to the challenge with which Zachary Schrag concluded his article, ‘The case against ethics review in social sciences’ − that ‘the burden of proof for its continuation rests on its defenders’ (Schrag, 2011). This article acknowledges that there is substance in the charges he lays against some reviews of social sciences and that these are of sufficient quantity and seriousness to justify his challenge. Instead of favouring abandonment of ethical review of social sciences, the author (...) of this article draws upon his experience as Research Ethics Officer for Social Sciences and Law in a research intensive UK university to identify the sources of some of the problems and suggest potential remedies. These start with reviewing the warrant for ethical review as the basis for understanding reviewer’s role concerning the core ethical issues of rigour, respect and responsibility in the proposed research. This response concludes by considering the implications of a warrant for enhancing trust between scientists and the public as the context in which ethical review is only one component in a number of ethical strategies designed to promote ethical mindfulness as integral to social science research. (shrink)

This paper asks how rule‐consequentialism might adapt to very adverse futures, and whether moderate liberal consequentialism can survive into broken futures and/or futures where humanity faces imminent extinction. The paper first recaps the recent history of rule‐consequentialist procreative ethics. It outlines rule‐consequentialism, extends it to cover future people, and applies it to broken futures. The paper then introduces a new thought experiment—the “ending world”—where humanity faces an extinction that is unavoidable and imminent, but not immediate. The paper concludes by explaining (...) why this thought experiment challenges rule‐consequentialism's commitment to procreative liberty, and briefly asking how rule‐consequentialism might respond to that challenge. (shrink)

This is the first volume to address directly the question of the speciation of modern Homo sapiens. The subject raises profound questions about the nature of the species, our defining characteristic, and the brain changes and their genetic basis that make us distinct. The British Academy and the Academy of Medical Sciences have brought together experts from palaeontology, archaeology, linguistics, psychology, genetics and evolutionary theory to present evidence and theories at the cutting edge of our understanding of these issues.Palaeontological and (...) genetic work suggests that the transition from a precursor hominid species to modern man took place between 100,000 and 150,000 years ago. Some contributors discuss what is most characteristic of the species, focussing on language and its possible basis in brain lateralization. This work is placed in the context of speciation theory, which has remained a subject of considerable debate since the evolutionary synthesis of Mendelian genetics and Darwinian theory. The timing of specific transitions in hominid evolution is discussed, as also is the question of the neural basis of language. Other contributors address the possible genetic nature of the transition, with reference to changes on the X and Y chromosomes that may account for sex differences in lateralization and verbal ability. These differences are discussed in terms of the theory of sexual selection, and with reference to the mechanisms of speciation.These essays will be vital reading for anyone interested in the nature and origins of the species, and specifically human abilities. (shrink)

This paper builds on the work of Tuffrey-Wijne et al. and explores the issue of vulnerability and persons with disabilities in relation to Euthnasia and Assisted Dying. The commentary draws on both the literature and on case examples from Canada. Specifically, it considers the issue of EAS as an alternative to, or substituted for, appropriate disability supports. Secondly, it considers the issue of the devaluation of disabled lives in general and within health care practice and ethics. It concludes that current (...) safeguards are inadequate and that as EAS regimes become more permissive the risk to disabled persons will increase. (shrink)

Alex Mesoudi’s book shows cultural evolution to be a mature field, which has already illuminated many instances of cultural change. Mesoudi’s presentation of the discipline nonetheless invites three objections. First, the culture concept it makes use of is not clearly defined; second, Mesoudi’s historical argument which looks back to the modern synthesis in order to predict an analogous synthesis in the social sciences is flawed; third, Mesoudi’s understanding of the positions held by leading figures within social science is shaky.

On December 9, 1999, VA Linux issued shares to the public and left over $900 million on the table for investors. In the prospectus, the investment banker Credit Suisse First Boston (CSFB) stated it would receive a 7% gross spread as its compensation for underwriting the shares. Yet the SEC alleges some investors paid enormous commissions to CSFB in the form of a kick-back immediately after obtaining the IPO shares. Hence, CSFB had an economic interest in the IPO and there (...) was not a full distribution of shares. This apparent violation of NASD Rule 2110 raises questions as to the credibility of the financial markets. (shrink)

An examination of the philosophical issues surrounding prudential value: what it is for something to be good for a person; and well-being: what it is for someone's life to go well. It critically analyzes competing approaches, and proposes a new subjective account that addresses key weaknesses of existing theories.

People support ethical antirealism with various arguments. Gilbert Harman thinks if a property of goodness existed, it would have detectable effects on objects that have it. However, Harman reasons, the good has no such detectable effects. Internalists think if good objects had some goodness property, that property would bond to desire and action in a way inconsistent with ethical realism. I defend ethical realism from the two arguments. I explain how good can both name a property and how objects with (...) that property might dispose people to seek them. This explanation of the good's magnetism provides a reply to Harman. (shrink)

Climate change is one of the greatest collective action problems ever faced. The social and cultural barriers to intersubjectively motivating concern and agency are sweeping. It seems all but impossible to imagine politically viable solutions commensurate with the realities of the problem, and likewise find visionary ways of framing this problem to inspire meaningful solutions. One therefore perceives an abyss between ‘problem’ and ‘solution,’ as expressed in irreconcilable debates between problem-driven and solution-driven strategies for motivating climate action. Drawing on Merleau-Ponty’s (...) dialectical phenomenology of motivation and class consciousness in particular, I argue that his call for a “thinkable politics” can help activists bring problem-driven and solution-driven motives for climate response into productive relation. (shrink)

Live algorithms are an ideal concept: computational systems able to collaborate proactively with humans in the creation of group-based improvised music. The challenge is to achieve equivalence between human and computer collaborators, both in formal terms and in practice. The fundamental question is the capacity for computational processes to exhibit “creativity.” The problems inherent in computer music performance are considered, in which computers are quasi-instruments or act in proxy for another musician. Theories from social psychology and pragmatics are explored to (...) help understand live music-making as a special case of social organization; namely, Kelley’s covariation model of Attribution Theory and Grice’s Maxims of Cooperation. This chapter outlines a description of how human beings and computers might engage on an equivalent basis and proposes how social psychology theories, rendered in formal language, can point to new horizons in human-computer performance practice. (shrink)

This article attempts to foreground the importance of everyday life and habit to the reproduction of national identities. Taking issue with dominant linear depictions of the time of the nation, which have over-emphasized ‘official’ histories, tradition and heroic narratives, this article foregrounds the everyday rhythms through which a sense of national belonging is sustained. The article focuses upon institutionalized schedules, habitual routines, collective synchronicities and serialized time-spaces to develop an argument that quotidian, cyclical time is integral to national identity. In (...) conclusion, accounts that discuss the increasing dominance of a postmodern global time are argued to be hyperbolic, since the nation remains a powerful, if more flexible constituent of identity. (shrink)