Explores the understanding of self-consciousness and personal identity - two fundamendtal features of human subjectivity - as it developed in early modern philosophy. Udo Thiel presents a critical evaluation of these features as they were conceived in the sevententh and eighteenth centuries. He explains the arguments of thinkers such as Descartes, Locke, Leibniz, Wolff, and Hume, as well as their early critics, followers, and other philosophical contemporaries, and situates them within their historical contexts. Interest in the issues of self-consciousness and (...) personal identity is in many ways characteristic [of] and even central to early modern thought, but Thiel argues here that this is also an interest that continues to this day, in a form still strongly influenced by the conceptual frameworks of early modern thought. In this book he attempts to broaden the scope of the treatment of these issues considerably, covering more than a hundred years of philosophical debate in France, Britain, and Germany while remaining attentive to the details of the arguments under scrutiny and discussing alternative interpretations in many cases"--Publisher's description, p. [4] of dust jacket. (shrink)

Knowing that technologies are inherently value-laden and systemically interwoven with society, the question is how individual engineers can take up the challenge of accepting the responsibility for their work? This paper will argue that engineers have no institutional structure at the level of society that allows them to recognize, reflect upon, and actively integrate the value-laden character of their designs. Instead, engineers have to tap on the different institutional realms of market, science, and state, making their work a ‘hybrid’ activity (...) combining elements from the different institutional realms. To deal with this institutional hybridity, engineers develop routines and heuristics in their professional network, which do not allow societal values to be expressed in a satisfactory manner. To allow forms of ‘active’ responsibility, there have to be so-called ‘accountability forums’ that guide moral reflections of individual actors. The paper will subsequently look at the methodologies of value-sensitive design and constructive technology assessment and explore whether and how these methodologies allow engineers to integrate societal values into the design technological artifacts and systems. As VSD and CTA are methodologies that look at the process of technological design, whereas the focus of this paper is on the designer, they can only be used indirectly, namely as frameworks which help to identify the contours of a framework for active responsibility of engineers. (shrink)

Emotions are often met with suspicion in political debates about risky technologies, because they are seen as contrary to rational decision making. However, recent emotion research rejects such a dichotomous view of reason and emotion, by seeing emotions as an important source of moral insight. Moral emotions such as compassion and feelings of responsibility and justice can play an important role in judging ethical aspects of technological risks, such as justice, fairness, and autonomy. This article discusses how this idea can (...) be integrated into approaches for political decision making about risk. The article starts with an analysis of the dichotomous view of reason and emotion in risk theory, in approaches to participatory risk assessment as well as in relevant approaches to political philosophy. This article then presents alternative approaches in political philosophy and political theory that do explicitly endorse the importance of emotions. Based on these insights, a procedural approach for policy making is presented, in which emotional responses to technological risks, and the ethical concerns that lie behind them, are taken seriously. This approach allows for morally better political decisions about risky technologies and a better understanding between experts and laypeople. (shrink)

Despite the opening of the market and partial privatization of state‐owned companies in China, the state still represents the controlling shareholder in larger companies. By analyzing the weaknesses of Chinese corporate governance we illustrate the framework for harmful corruption. China is characterized by a weak legal system and strong influences of traditions such as guanxi. In this article we analyze the influence of guanxi on the Chinese corporate governance system. We find that guanxi is in general a double‐edged sword, but (...) business‐to‐government guanxi in particular can harm the weak Chinese corporate governance system and hamper its further economic development and growth. (shrink)

We study the position of the computable setting in the “common theory of locality” developed in [4, 5] for local problems on $\Delta $ -regular trees, $\Delta \in \omega $. We show that such a problem admits a computable solution on every highly computable $\Delta $ -regular forest if and only if it admits a Baire measurable solution on every Borel $\Delta $ -regular forest. We also show that if such a problem admits a computable solution on every computable maximum (...) degree $\Delta $ forest then it admits a continuous solution on every maximum degree $\Delta $ Borel graph with appropriate topological hypotheses, though the converse does not hold. (shrink)

This paper examines the intrinsic relation between institutions and social justice. Its starting point is that processes of institutionalization invoke societal groups to articulate justice demands which, in their turn, give rise to processes of institutional redesign. In liberal democracies, demands for justice are articulated as a pursuit for emancipation and empowerment of groups that feel excluded by dominant categorizations. The imminent presence of this twin pursuit for justice can be explained by the conceptual inconsistencies that characterize the distinction between (...) the public and private sphere. These inconsistencies also explain why demands for emancipation and empowerment are intrinsically ambiguous and inconsistent. In order to reconsider the question how institutions are to be adapted to allow for social justice while acknowledging the plurality, ambiguity and volatility of justice demands, the paper will propose an empirical and normative research agenda. (shrink)

In a commentary published in Bioethics I defended Qatar as the location of the 2024 World Congress of Bioethics (Schuklenk 2023). I have since, reluctantly, changed my views on this.This brief resp...

Dr. Udo Lenzig ist Schulreferent im Kirchenkreis Julich.

Healthcare professionals’ capacity to protect themselves, while caring for infected patients during an infectious disease pandemic, depends on their ability to practise universal precautions. In turn, universal precautions rely on the availability of personal protective equipment (PPE). During the SARS-CoV2 outbreak many healthcare workers across the globe have been reluctant to provide patient care because crucial PPE components are in short supply. The lack of such equipment during the pandemic was not a result of careful resource allocation decisions in the (...) global north, where the short supply could be explained through their high cost. Instead, they were the result of democratically elected governments prioritising low tax regimes over an adequate resourcing of their healthcare delivery systems. Such decisions were made despite global health experts warning about the high probability of pandemics like SARS-CoV2 occurring during our lifetimes. Avoidable allocation decisions by democratically elected political leaders resulted in a lack of sufficient PPE for healthcare professionals. After discussing and discounting various ethical arguments in support of a professional obligation to treat, even without or with suboptimal PPE, I conclude that these policy decisions were sufficiently grave that they provide a sound ethical rationale to justify healthcare workers’ refusal to provide care to infected patients. (shrink)

This paper discusses a number of critical ethical problems that arise in interactions between queer patients and health care professionals attending them. Using real-world examples, we discuss the very practical problems queer patients often face in the clinic. Health care professionals face conflicts in societies that criminalise same sex relationships. We also analyse the question of what ought to be done to confront health care professionals who propagate falsehoods about homosexuality in the public domain. These health care professionals are more (...) often than not motivated by strong religious convictions that conflict with mainstream medical opinion on homosexuality. We argue that they ought to be held accountable for their conduct by their professional statutory bodies, given that they abuse their professional standing to propagate sectarian views not representative of their profession. Lastly, we propose that medical schools have special responsibilities in training future health care professionals that will enable them to respond professionally to queer patients seeking health care. (shrink)

Dieser Band stellt Abhandlungen von Udo Müllges (1926-1985), Universitätsprofessor an der RWTH Aachen, vor, die in ihrer Gesamtheit ein pädagogisches Programm spiegeln, das auf der geisteswissenschaftlichen Tradition fußt und sich dieser verpflichtet weiß. Der Bogen ist von der konstitutiv-kritischen Frage nach dem Wissenschaftscharakter der Pädagogik bis hin zu aktuellen schulpolitischen Problemen gespannt. In ihrer Gesamtheit bieten die Beiträge einen Einblick in das breite Feld pädagogischer Forschung und eröffnen die Möglichkeit zur produktiven Auseinandersetzung mit den von Udo Müllges erarbeiteten Konzepten zur (...) Klärung gegenwärtiger theoretischer und praktischer Fragen. Das Buch bietet gleichermaßen Anregungen für Fachkollegen, Studierende und Praktiker des pädagogischen Bereiches. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis report on end‐of‐life decision‐making in Canada was produced by an international expert panel and commissioned by the Royal Society of Canada. It consists of five chapters.Chapter 1 reviews what is known about end‐of‐life care and opinions about assisted dying in Canada.Chapter 2 reviews the legal status quo in Canada with regard to various forms of assisted death.Chapter 3 reviews ethical issues pertaining to assisted death. The analysis is grounded in core values central to Canada's constitutional order.Chapter 4 reviews the (...) experiences had in a number of jurisdictions that have decriminalized or recently reviewed assisted dying in some shape or form.Chapter 5 provides recommendations with regard to the provision of palliative care in Canada, as well as recommendations for reform with respect to the various forms of assisted death covered in this document. (shrink)

Apoptosis is a physiological mechanism for the removal of unwanted or damaged cells. Apoptotic cells are rarely seen in living tissues, however, because of their rapid and efficient removal by phagocytosis. Phagocytotic cells such as macrophages or dendritic cells recognize apoptotic cells by specific changes of cell surface markers, which usually are not present on normal cells. One such event is the exposure of phosphatidylserine, which moves from the plasma membrane inner leaflet to the outer leaflet in preapoptotic cells. An (...) unresolved problem, however, was the nature of the phosphatidylserine receptor on the phagocytotic cells. In a recent issue of Nature, Fadok et al.(1) have reported the cloning of a phosphatidylserine receptor using an antibody raised against activated macrophages. Antibody treatment of these macrophages blocks this capacity to engulf. BioEssays 22:878–881, 2000. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (shrink)

This paper was presented at the Engineering Foundation Conference on “Ethics for Science and Engineering Based International Industries”, Durham, NC, USA, 14–17 September 1997. An earlier version of this paper appeared in OECD’s STI Review No. 21, 1998, OECD. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development is an international organization founded in 1961 to stimulate economic progress and world trade. Information at [email protected].

The COVID-19 pandemic brought about at least two normative challenges on unprecedented scale for liberal democracies. One concerned prioritization decisions when health care resources were constrained. The other, which arguably led to lasting damage to social cohesion and citizens’ trust in government and government public health institutions, concerned policies introduced with the aim of reducing the spread of SARS-CoV2, some of which turned out to be mistaken. I discuss in this essay a few examples of misguided, liberty-limiting public health policies (...) and describe how public health and public health ethics principlism provided cover for such policies. Citizens had reasons to be concerned about the duration of such liberty-infringing policies, the absence of predictable government policies, and the absence of transparent justifications for the policies that were implemented. (shrink)

This paper makes a conceptual inquiry into the notion of ‘publics’, and forwards an understanding of this notion that allows more responsible forms of decision-making with regards to technologies that have localized impacts, such as wind parks, hydrogen stations or flood barriers. The outcome of this inquiry is that the acceptability of a decision is to be assessed by a plurality of ‘publics’, including that of a local community. Even though a plurality of ‘publics’ might create competing normative demands, its (...) acknowledgment is necessary to withstand the monopolization of the process of technology appraisal. The paper presents four ways in which such an appropriation of publicness takes place. The creation of dedicated ‘local publics’, in contrast, helps to overcome these problems and allows for more responsible forms of decision-making. We describe ‘local publics’ as those in which stakeholders from the different publics that are related to the process of technology implementation are brought together, and in which concerns and issues from these publics are deliberated upon. The paper will present eight conditions for increasing the effectiveness of such ‘local publics’. (shrink)

The way pollution is managed in Western countries is based on the preservation of the taboo character of waste, which is conceived to be privately produced and seen as a threat to public health. Public authorities have been given the responsibility to isolate waste and hide it from public eyes. However, this dominant approach is challenged by the emergence of new forms of pollution. New conceptual and policy frameworks to manage environmental degradation have to be developed. The prevailing institutional structures, (...) however, obstruct the successful societal uptake of alternative frameworks. (shrink)

We describe a number of conscientious objection cases in a liberal Western democracy. These cases strongly suggest that the typical conscientious objector does not object to unreasonable, controversial professional services—involving torture, for instance—but to the provision of professional services that are both uncontroversially legal and that patients are entitled to receive. We analyse the conflict between these patients' access rights and the conscientious objection accommodation demanded by monopoly providers of such healthcare services. It is implausible that professionals who voluntarily join (...) a profession should be endowed with a legal claim not to provide services that are within the scope of the profession's practice and that society expects them to provide. We discuss common counterarguments to this view and reject all of them. (shrink)

Udo Schaefers Studien zum Baha'ıtum - Ethische Aspekte der Schrift ist ein Versuch, die Baha'ıtum - Ethik systematisch darzustellen, ihre zugrundeliegenden Strukturen zu analysieren und ihre innere Architektur aufzuspüren. Der erste der beiden Bände, Grundlagen, enthält eine kurze Darstellung des Baha'ıtums, einen systematischen Überblick über seine Lehren, über den Ursprung und die Herkunft moralischer Werte. Die metaphysische Natur des Menschen und seine Verantwortlichkeit wird ebenso untersucht wie der Verstand und das Gewissen sowie die Freiheit und ihre Grenzen.

Zusammenfassung a. Angeregt von den Hinweisen aus dem armenischen Kloster in St. Lazzaro, bemerkten einige, auf die kaukasischen Hochkulturen spezialisierte europäische Orientalisten, die Rezeption der proklischen Philosophie in Armenien. 1874, nach fast fünfzig Jahren Forschungsarbeit, standen folgende Ergebnisse fest: I. Im 9. Jahrhundert übersetzte der Georgier Petrizi die Στοιχείωσις θεολογική ins Georgische und fügte Kommentare hinzu. Diese Vorlage nutzte der Armenier Simeon für eine erste armenische Übersetzung des proklischen Opusculums. Später, in der Frühen Neuzeit, erkannte dann ein anderer armenischer Gelehrter, (...) der ebenfalls den Namen Simeon‘ trug, die Fehler dieser ersten Translation, verbesserte sie und verfasste ebenfalls einen Kommentar dazu. Handschriften dieser zweiten Fassung befanden sich in Westeuropa sowie in armenischen Klöstern. b. Eine umfangreiche Auseinandersetzung mit den armenischen Procliana fand in Europa allerdings nicht statt. Die Ursache für diese verpasste Gelegenheit liegt vor allem am mangelnden Interesse an einem vertieften Studium der armenischen Philosophie und an fehlenden philologischen Fachkenntnissen. Nur C. F. Neumann kann dabei als Ausnahme gelten. Er wäre aufgrund seiner philosophischen und philologischen Ausbildung zu einer qualifizierten Auswertung der armenischen Procliana in der Lage gewesen. Er suchte sogar nach diesen Materialien, aber seine Recherchen führten nicht zum gewünschten Erfolg. Später verlor er die Philosophie der Armenier aus den Augen und überließ das Feld anderen. Deren Kenntnis des Proklos und seiner Philosophie hielt sich dagegen in engen Grenzen und ging nicht über die Informationen lexikalischer Handbücher hinaus. Das entsprach dem Geist der Zeit, die im Neuplatonismus keine bedeutende philosophische Strömung sah. Dennoch führten diese Untersuchungen zu Einsichten in die Geschichte der armenischen Philosophie. c. Die armenischen Procliana standen im 19. Jahrhundert niemals im Mittelpunkt der Forschung. Daran hat sich bis heute kaum etwas geändert. Ein Umdenken kann jedoch nur dann gelingen, wenn sich die Erkenntnis durchsetzt, dass auch Translationen als Dokumente der interkulturellen Philosophie eine hohe Bedeutung besitzen und die Rekonstruktion derartiger Transfers zu wichtigen Ergebnissen führt; Übersetzungen verknüpfen nicht nur Sprachwelten, sondern auch differente Weltdeutungen. Die armenischen Procliana bestätigen jedenfalls die These, dass die Auffassung von separaten philosophischen Traditionen in Armenien und Georgien nur bedingt Gültigkeit besitzt. (shrink)

Developing World Bioethics, Accepted Article.

In recent years policy makers and public health professionals have described obesity and its associated diseases as a major global public health problem. Bioethicists have tried to address the normative implications of proposed public health interventions by developing guidelines or proposing ethical principles that ethically grounded health policy responses should take into consideration. We are reviewing here relevant literature and conclude that while there are clearly health implications resulting from the increasing number of seriously obese people across the globe, there (...) appear to be legitimate questions about the scope of the problem as well as questions about whether particular demonstrable correlations are indicative of causations. These empirical questions require further clinical and epidemiological research. We then review currently discussed public health ethics guidance documents and proposals. Suffering from the same conceptual problems that are known features of principle-based bioethics, insofar as their capacity to ground ethically justifiable policies is concerned, they are unsuitable for actual policy development. Even if the empirical questions were resolved, health policy makers could not rely on currently existing prominent public health ethics guidance documents to develop ethically defensible policies. Further empirical and ethics research is necessary to develop ethically defensible public health policies targeting obesity. (shrink)

We develop and use an integrated individual-level model to explain the driving forces behind digital piracy practice in two nations. The proposed model combines the Norm Activation model and Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology models. This study also explores the effect of culture on intention to practice DP in two nations: US and India. A survey instrument was used to collect data from 231 US and 331 Indian participants. Use of the integrated model proves to be a (...) powerful and a viable approach to understanding DP across cultures. In each nation, all 10 path coefficients on the research model are statistically significant thereby establishing the fact that personal norm, together with other factors, influences INT to engage in DP, which in turn, may influence the actual practice. The results reveal a support for cross-cultural generalizability and applicability of the proposed model. Culture clearly plays a strong moderating role in two out of the three paths tested. The implications of the findings are discussed. (shrink)

This essay inquires into the semantics of the term “experience” in a selection of prose novels from the early modern period. Against the background of a complex history of discourses about experience, ultimately leading to a fully articulated concept of “empiricism” and “experiment”, the author traces the term’s usages in Hartlieb’s ‘Alexander’, in the novel ‘Fortunatus’ as well as in Wickram’s ‘Of Good and Bad Neighbours’. Furthermore, he elaborates those cultural topoi of experience that are based principally on an understanding (...) of “memory” and “adaptation”. As a result, the author is able to show, that all three texts place varying emphases on the topics of experience. (shrink)

Anlässlich des 75-jährigen Jubiläums der Zeitschrift »Psyche« skizziert der Beitrag einen Überblick über die Geschichte seit ihrer Gründung 1947. Dargestellt und reflektiert werden einige der personellen Besonderheiten wie auch Debatten, die zum einen in der Zeitschrift geführt, zum anderen von der Zeitschrift angestoßen wurden.

This article by one of the Editors of Bioethics, published in the 25th anniversary issue of the journal, describes some of the revolutionary changes academic publishing has undergone during the last decades. Many humanities journals went from typically small print-runs, counting by the hundreds, to on-line availability in thousands of university libraries worldwide. Article up-take by our subscribers can be measured efficiently. The implications of this and other changes to academic publishing are discussed. Important ethical challenges need to be addressed (...) in areas such as the enforcement of plagiarism-related policies, the so-called ‘impact factor’ and its impact on academic integrity, and the question of whether on-line only publishing can currently guarantee the integrity of academic publishing histories. (shrink)