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Assessing causal and moral responsibility for the things we fail to do
This book empirically investigates the social practice of ascribing moral responsibility to others for the things they failed to do, and it discusses the philosophical relevance of this practice. In our everyday life, we often blame others for things they failed to do. For instance, we might blame our neighbour for not watering our plants during our vacation. Interestingly, the attribution of blame is typically accompanied by the attribution of causal responsibility. We do not only blame our neighbour for not watering our plants, but we do so because we believe that not watering the plants caused them to dry up and die. In this book, I investigate how we make moral and causal judgments about omissions. I discuss different philosophical perspectives on this matter, and I outline to what extent the actual social practice is in line with philosophical theories.
really being an inquirer at all. Pyrrhonian inquiry is a sham. According to Jonathan Barnes, for instance, “real Sextan sceptics do not investigate” 2 and as Gisela Striker says, “contrary to Sextus’ initial claim that the Sceptic goes on investigating, philosophical investigations seem to be precisely
Editor:
Andreas Hüttemann
This collection of essays intends to give an overview over new work on determinism in physics and biology. What is controversial in this area is not much the concept of determinism but rather the question whether certain theories ought to be qualified as deterministic or indeterministic. Thus most of the contributors focus on particular theories in physics or biology. Thomas Breuer concerns himself with recent developments in quantum mechanics. Claus Kiefer discusses the implications of various theories of gravitation for the concept of determinism. Bruno Eckhardt’s paper deals with classical and quantum chaos. Andreas Bartels investigates to what extent the determination relation between parts and wholes in physics supports materialism. The papers by Bruce Glymour, Roberta Millstein, Frédéric Bouchard and Alex Rosenberg concern the interpretation of the statistical aspects of evolutionary theory. Finally Ansgar Beckermann deals with the issue of free will. He argues that a biological determinism would not rule out the possibility of human freedom
An integrated account of joint action
Without joint action, man’s cultural, scientific and everyday achievements would be unthinkable. What special cognitive abilities make it possible for this to happen so often and in so many ways? Dancing, waging war, building a castle together in the sandbox - joint action is a central component of everyday life and the success of mankind. This ability is based on special socio-cognitive abilities, the scope and interplay of which characterize the human species. Literature often focuses on the large and complex forms of joint action.
This book represents an attempt to present a philosophical reconstruction of joint action through an interdisciplinary investigation of small forms with few actors. This is suitable for explaining the behavior of children and adults, as well as for taking into account empirical results from related disciplines, especially developmental psychology.
This book represents an attempt to present a philosophical reconstruction of joint action through an interdisciplinary investigation of small forms with few actors. This is suitable for explaining the behavior of children and adults, as well as for taking into account empirical results from related disciplines, especially developmental psychology.
From Basic Self-Representation to Self-Related Cognition
One oft the most fascinating abilities of humans is the ability to become conscious of the own physical and mental states. In this systematic investigation of self-consciousness, a representational theory is developed that is able to distinguish between different levels of self-consciousness. The most basic levels are already present in such simple animals as ants. From these basic forms, which are also relevant for adult human self-consciousness, high-level self-consciousness including self-knowledge can arise. Thereby, the theory is not only able to integrate developmental considerations but also to sharply distinguish different aspects of the complex phenomenon self-consciousness. Pathological breakdowns of these different aspects, as they can be found in schizophrenia, are explained by specific impairments on different levels of self-representation. In this way, the work shows that a naturalistic theory of self-consciousness is possible, if the analysis starts with very simple and basic mechanisms instead of starting on the 'top of the iceberg'.
An Ethical Analysis
Radical life extension is the direct and intentional extension of the maximum human life span through hypothetical biotechnologies. Although no such technologies do currently exist, it is imperative to analyze whether they should be developed because they could have considerable effects on individuals and societal structures. This book provides a comprehensive ethical analysis of radical life extension by investigating its possible influence on human welfare. Effects resulting from the actions of isolated individuals, such as the satisfaction or frustration of certain desires, are taken into account as well as collective effects, such as an increased trend towards overpopulation. Topics that are not directly related to human welfare are covered as well, for example, human nature and human dignity, the right to life, and the relationship between aging and the meaning of life. The book concludes with an outline of policy recommendations for future research on life extension technologies.
), What can we achieve (individual and societal capabilities) and How can we interact with each other and the world? (societal cohesion). The attempt to answer these questions and moreover the general moral question What should we do? has been part of ethical investigations since Socrates’ philosophy
This book investigates whether knowledge is closed under known entailment. Traditionally it has been assumed that if a person knows some proposition p and also knows that this proposition entails another proposition q, then by inferring q from p that person would gain knowledge of q. This so-called ‚Principle of Deductive Closure‘ is of intrinsic interest because, if true, it expresses an important structural characteristic of knowledge. Challenges to this principle of deductive closure have been formulated by Fred Dretske and Robert Nozick, among others. Most replies to these challenges, as well as the challenges themselves, make explicit or implicit use of the idea that our knowledge claims are not invariant, but relative to a context. Therefore, a substantial part of the book is devoted to an analysis of contextualism and a criticism of the current contextualistic accounts. Once developed, the account is then used to answer the challenge to the principle of deductive closure. Epistemic contextualism results in a limited closure principle.
Ethical and social consequences of neuroscientific progress
Advances in the neurosciences have ethical and social implications which need careful consideration from an interdisciplinary perspective: The present book allows readers with different backgrounds gaining a better understanding of recent progress in the neurosciences and their implications. It first introduces to thinking in applied ethics and offers an approach that does justice to challenges from the neurosciences. State-of-the-art scientific work is discussed with respect to its implications for the individual and society. Methods of brain monitoring are explained looking at potentials and limitations as well as at implications of applications. Second, the wide field of brain manipulation is analysed with a focus on psychopharmacological enhancement. The discussion includes investigation of our capacity to handle the options opened to us, safety issues, the role of social pressures, equality of opportunity and distributive justice, as well as questions of the concept of normality, authenticity and naturalness. The book highlights crucial challenges for the individual, policy, law, and society emerging from neuroscientific and neurotechnological advances.The approach avoids problematic neuro-reductionism and is aware of promises and perils of neuroscientific progress. It thus balances overly sceptical with overenthusiastic positions by offering a profound analysis of scientific and ethical issues.
The book shows the relevance of meta-ethical and metaphysical considerations to determine the nature of law and the connection between objective moral and legal judgements. The investigation analyses the legal theories of Ronald Dworkin, Jürgen Habermas and Michael Moore. The conclusion of the scrutiny is that the discussed views fail to explain the plausible links between objective moral and legal judgements. The lesson to learn from the failure of these philosophical perspectives is that we need to revise fundamental meta-ethical conceptions within law. In addition to the view that meta-ethical and metaphysical considerations play a central role in our understanding of objective moral and legal judgements, we enforce the idea that it is necessary to revise our meta-ethical and metaphysical premises in jurisprudence. Epistemic and meta-ethical abstinence in legal theory, in this way, is challenged by a number of criticisms. The outcome of our reflection is that in legal theory, as in many other disciplines, we need to take truth and objectivity seriously.