We motivate and formalize the idea of sameness by default: two objects are considered the same if they cannot be proved to be different. This idea turns out to be useful for a number of widely different applications, including natural language processing, reasoning with incomplete information, and even philosophical paradoxes. We consider two formalizations of this notion, both of which are based on Reiter’s Default Logic. The first formalization is a new relation of indistinguishability that is introduced by default. We (...) prove that the corresponding default theory has a unique extension, in which every two objects are indistinguishable if and only if their non-equality cannot be proved from the known facts. We show that the indistinguishability relation has some desirable properties: it is reflexive, symmetric, and, while not transitive, it has a transitive “flavor.” The second formalization is an extension (modification) of the ordinary language equality by a similar default: two objects are equal if and only if their non-equality cannot be proved from the known facts. It appears to be less elegant from a formal point of view. In particular, it gives rise to multiple extensions. However, this extended equality is better suited for most of the applications discussed in this paper. (shrink)

In 1952, Heinrich Scholz published a question in The Journal of Symbolic Logic asking for a characterization of spectra, i.e., sets of natural numbers that are the cardinalities of finite models of first order sentences. Günter Asser in turn asked whether the complement of a spectrum is always a spectrum. These innocent questions turned out to be seminal for the development of finite model theory and descriptive complexity. In this paper we survey developments over the last 50-odd years pertaining to (...) the spectrum problem. Our presentation follows conceptual developments rather than the chronological order. Originally a number theoretic problem, it has been approached by means of recursion theory, resource bounded complexity theory, classification by complexity of the defining sentences, and finally by means of structural graph theory. Although Scholz' question was answered in various ways, Asser's question remains open. (shrink)

This book critically examines what role, if any, should the notion of perfection play in the debate regarding the ethics of human enhancement. It defends that the concept of -human perfection- needs to be central when morally assessing human enhancements.".

Both, bioconservatives and bioliberals, should seek a discussion about ideas of human perfection, making explicit their underlying assumptions about what makes for a good human life. This is relevant, because these basic, and often implicit ideas, inform and influence judgements and choices about human enhancement interventions. Both neglect, and polemical but inconsistent use of the complex ideas of perfection are leading to confusion within the ethical debate about human enhancement interventions, that can be avoided by tackling the notion of perfection (...) directly. In the recent debates, bioconservatives have prominently argued against the ‘pursuit of perfection’ by biotechnological means. In the first part of this paper, we show that—paradoxically—bioconservatives themselves explicitly embrace specific conceptions of human perfection and perfectionist assumptions about the good human life in order to argue against the use of enhancement technologies. Yet, we argue that the bioconservative position contains an untenable ambiguity between criticising and endorsing ideas of human perfection. Hence, they stand in need of clarifying their stance on human perfection. In the second part of the paper, we ask whether bioliberals in fact (implicitly) advocate a particular conception of perfection, or whether they are right in holding that they do not, and that discussing perfection is obsolete anyway. We show that bioliberals also rely on a specific idea of human perfection, based on the idea of autonomy. Hence, their denial of the relevance of perfection in the debate is unconvincing and has to be revised. (shrink)

Whatever ethical stance one takes in the debate regarding the ethics of human enhancement, one or more reference points are required to assess its morality. Some have suggested looking at the bioethical notions of safety, justice, and/or autonomy to find such reference points. Others, arguing that those notions are limited with respect to assessing the morality of human enhancement, have turned to human nature, human authenticity, or human dignity as reference points, thereby introducing some perfectionist assumptions into the debate. In (...) this article, we ask which perfectionist assumptions should be used in this debate. After a critique of views that are problematic, we take a positive approach, suggesting some perfectionist elements that can lend guidance to the practice of human enhancement, based on the work of Martha Nussbaum's Capability Approach. We suggest that the central capabilities can be used to define the human aspect of human enhancement and thereby allow a moral evaluation of enhancement interventions. These central capabilities can be maximized harmoniously to postulate what an ideal human would look like. Ultimately, the aim of this article is twofold. First, it seeks to make explicit the perfectionist assumptions found in the debate and eliminate those that are problematic. Second, the paper clarifies an element that is often neglected in the debate about human enhancement, the view of the ideal human towards which human enhancement should strive. Here, we suggest that some central capabilities that are essential for an ideal human being can be maximized harmoniously and can therefore serve as possible reference points to guide human enhancement. (shrink)

Is it necessary to have an ideal of perfection in mind to identify and evaluate true biotechnological human “enhancements”, or can one do without? To answer this question we suggest employing the distinction between ideal and non-ideal theory, found in the debate in political philosophy about theories of justice: the distinctive views about whether one needs an idea of a perfectly just society or not when it comes to assessing the current situation and recommending steps to increase justice. In this (...) paper we argue that evaluating human enhancements from a non-ideal perspective has some serious shortcomings, which can be avoided when endorsing an ideal approach. Our argument starts from a definition of human enhancement as improvement, which can be understood in two ways. The first approach is backward-looking and assesses improvements with regard to a status quo ante. The second, a forward-looking approach, evaluates improvements with regard to their proximity to a goal or according to an ideal. After outlining the limitations of an exclusively backward-looking view, we answer possible objections against a forward-looking view. Ultimately, we argue that the human enhancement debate would lack some important moral insights if a forward-looking view of improvement is not taken into consideration. (shrink)

The ethics of human enhancement has been a hotly debated topic in the last 15 years. In this debate, some advocate examining science fiction stories to elucidate the ethical issues regarding the current phenomenon of human enhancement. Stories from science fiction seem well suited to analyze biomedical advances, providing some possible case studies. Of particular interest is the work of screenwriter Andrew Niccol (Gattaca, S1m0ne, In Time, and Good Kill), which often focuses on ethical questions raised by the use of (...) new technologies. Examining the movie In Time (2011), the aim of this paper is to show how science fiction can contribute to the ethical debate of human enhancement. In Time provides an interesting case study to explore what could be some of the consequences of radical life-extension technologies. In this paper, we will show how arguments regarding radical life-extension portrayed in this particular movie differ from what is found in the scientific literature. We will see how In Time gives flesh to arguments defending or rejecting radical life-extension. It articulates feelings of unease, alienation and boredom associated with this possibility. Finally, this article will conclude that science fiction movies in general, and In Time in particular, are a valuable resource for a broad and comprehensive debate about our coming future. (shrink)

Both the Green Revolution and GE foods have come under persistent attack by social philosophers, environmentalists, and other commentators, who argue that these technologies should be banned. In this essay, I examine five of the most common arguments for banning further development of GE crops, and show how they effectively reduce to two: distress at blurred boundaries, and hazards of a new technology. I will also show that both of these arguments can be addressed and defused—and so we can use (...) “Frankenfoods” to help feed the world. (shrink)

Both the Green Revolution and GE foods have come under persistent attack by social philosophers, environmentalists, and other commentators, who argue that these technologies should be banned. In this essay, I examine five of the most common arguments for banning further development of GE crops, and show how they effectively reduce to two: distress at blurred boundaries, and hazards of a new technology. I will also show that both of these arguments can be addressed and defused—and so we can use (...) “Frankenfoods” to help feed the world. (shrink)

Drawing on historical inisights, systematic reflections and empirical data, this book offers a substantive understanding of the complex relationship between religion and human rights and of the empirical impact of Christianity and Islam on the attitudes toward human rights, i.e. a human rights culture.

This volume contains four theoretical and four empirical articles that aim at conceptual clarification and descriptive and causal exploration on data from 14 countries about historical and current tensions within and between religions, Christiantity and Islam, and human rights in various contexts.

In this essay, we examine one of our perennial favorites, the story of “The Sneetches” (the first of four stories in Seuss 1961) as an exposition and condemnation of the role of shame and humiliation in maintaining oppressive social systems. We argue that Seuss’s Sneetches vividly demonstrate how we contribute to the unjustified oppression of a disadvantaged group when we allow our shaming behaviors to be guided by stereotypical presumptions about aperson’s moral character based on non-voluntary personal characteristics, rather than (...) by evaluations of character based on the evidence of voluntary behavior. (shrink)

In this essay, we examine one of our perennial favorites, the story of “The Sneetches” as an exposition and condemnation of the role of shame and humiliation in maintaining oppressive social systems. We argue that Seuss’s Sneetches vividly demonstrate how we contribute to the unjustified oppression of a disadvantaged group when we allow our shaming behaviors to be guided by stereotypical presumptions about aperson’s moral character based on non-voluntary personal characteristics, rather than by evaluations of character based on the evidence (...) of voluntary behavior. (shrink)

This volume is about the positive, ambivalent, null and negative effects in various historical periods by various religious denominations within Christianity, Islam and Hinduism on the attitudes towards human rights of the first, second and third generation.

Research on self-determination theory and clinical models such as acceptance and commitment therapy has shown that behaving in line with our values is key to maintaining healthy well-being. Combining work on values and experimental studies on moral hypocrisy and well-being, we experimentally tested how behaving incongruently with values affects well-being. We hypothesized that discrepancies between how one thinks one should have behaved and how one reported one did behave would be more detrimental to well-being when the behaviors were value-expressive and (...) motivationally coherent compared to a control condition; greater perceived gaps between how participants feel they should have acted and how they report they did act would be associated with more negative well-being outcomes; the relationship between value manipulation and well-being would be mediated by perceived behavioral gap; and that personal values would interact with value manipulation to produce differential effects on well-being. One-hundred and fifty-eight first-year psychology students participated in an experiment designed to highlight discrepancies between how participants have behaved in accordance with a certain value and how they think they should have behaved, before reporting their well-being. As hypothesized, greater discrepancies between reported past behavior and how participants thought they should have behaved was associated with negative affect and decreased reports of positive well-being. We found no evidence for differential effects of manipulated value-expressive behaviors on well-being, or for our hypotheses that personal values and manipulated value-expressive behaviors interact. Nevertheless, value content mattered in terms of inducing perceived behavioral gaps. Our study suggests that perceived discrepancies between any value and reported past behavior can have a negative impact on some aspects of well-being. We discuss how the application of our methodology can be used in further studies to disentangle the value-behavior nexus. (shrink)

Several congregations in the workspace of the Netherdutch Reformed Church of Africa are losing viability and sustainability. This can be attributed to various factors, the most prominent being isolation. Isolation is defined here as the inability of some congregations to move away from maintenance and an inward focus towards making necessary adjustments on the way to a dimension of missional focus. While commitment and enthusiasm are present in the work of all congregations, some find it difficult to adapt their established (...) ideas and in some cases obsolete customs and traditions. Other congregations have made the necessary adjustments by defining themselves as missional. In congregations where constructive change occurs, the focus moves to undertake congregational ministries. The congregation not only gains insight into their own situation but also becomes aware of God’s calling for that specific congregation within a specific context. The focus shifts from their own situation and needs to the needs and challenges of the context surrounding the specific congregation. A consequence of this change in focus is that the whole ministry of the congregation adjusts accordingly. These congregations discover their own unique spirituality and begin to ask: For whom do we exist? The article is based on a PhD thesis, where Osmer’s four questions of practical theology were brought into the conversation with the modelling process of neuro-linguistic programming, in an attempt to sojourn with congregations towards a contextual missional focus. This research was undertaken to expand Osmer’s four questions of practical theology by using the modelling process of neuro-linguistic programming so that congregations may succeed in making the necessary adjustments. (shrink)

BackgroundThe preferable position of Deep Brain Stimulation electrodes is proposed to be located in the dorsolateral subthalamic nucleus to improve general motor performance. The optimal DBS electrode localization for the post-operative improvement of balance and gait is unknown.MethodsIn this single-center, retrospective analyses, 66 Parkinson’s disease patients were assessed pre- and post-operatively by using MDS-UPDRS, freezing of gait score, Giladi’s gait and falls questionnaire and Berg balance scale. The clinical outcome was related to the DBS electrode coordinates in x, y, z (...) plane as revealed by image-based reconstruction. Binomial generalized linear mixed models with fixed-effect variables electrode asymmetry, parkinsonian subtype, medication, age class and clinical DBS induced changes were analyzed.ResultsSubthalamic nucleus-deep brain stimulation improved all motor, balance and FoG scores in MED OFF condition, however there were heterogeneous results in MED ON condition. DBS electrode reconstructed coordinates impacted the responsiveness of axial symptoms. FoG and balance responders showed slightly more medially located STN electrode coordinates and less medio-lateral asymmetry of the electrode reconstructed coordinates across hemispheres compared to non-responders.ConclusionDeep brain stimulation electrode reconstructed coordinates, particularly electrode asymmetry on the medio-lateral axis affected the post-operative responsiveness of balance and FoG symptoms in PD patients. (shrink)

We prove that compactness is equivalent to the amalgamation property, provided the occurrence number of the logic is smaller than the first uncountable measurable cardinal. We also relate compactness to the existence of certain regular ultrafilters related to the logic and develop a general theory of compactness and its consequences. We also prove some combinatorial results of independent interest.

We show that the spectrum of a sentence ϕ in Counting Monadic Second Order Logic (CMSOL) using one binary relation symbol and finitely many unary relation symbols, is ultimately periodic, provided all the models of ϕ are of clique width at most k, for some fixed k. We prove a similar statement for arbitrary finite relational vocabularies τ and a variant of clique width for τ-structures. This includes the cases where the models of ϕ are of tree width at most (...) k. For the case of bounded tree-width, the ultimate periodicity is even proved for Guarded Second Order Logic GSOL. We also generalize this result to many-sorted spectra, which can be viewed as an analogue of Parikh's Theorem on context-free languages, and its analogues for context-free graph grammars due to Habel and Courcelle. Our work was inspired by Gurevich and Shelah (2003), who showed ultimate periodicity of the spectrum for sentences of Monadic Second Order Logic where only finitely many unary predicates and one unary function are allowed. This restriction implies that the models are all of tree width at most 2, and hence it follows from our result. (shrink)

The classical Feferman–Vaught Theorem for First Order Logic explains how to compute the truth value of a first order sentence in a generalized product of first order structures by reducing this computation to the computation of truth values of other first order sentences in the factors and evaluation of a monadic second order sentence in the index structure. This technique was later extended by Läuchli, Shelah and Gurevich to monadic second order logic. The technique has wide applications in decidability and (...) definability theory. Here we give a unified presentation, including some new results, of how to use the Feferman–Vaught Theorem, and some new variations thereof, algorithmically in the case of Monadic Second Order Logic MSOL . We then extend the technique to graph polynomials where the range of the summation of the monomials is definable in MSOL . Here the Feferman–Vaught Theorem for these polynomials generalizes well known splitting theorems for graph polynomials. Again, these can be used algorithmically. Finally, we discuss extensions of MSOL for which the Feferman–Vaught Theorem holds as well. (shrink)

We investigate the expressive power of second-order logic over finite structures, when two limitations are imposed. Let SAA ) be the set of second-order formulas such that the arity of the relation variables is bounded by k and the number of alternations of second-order quantification is bounded by n . We show that this imposes a proper hierarchy on second-order logic, i.e. for every k , n there are problems not definable in AA but definable in AA for some c (...) 1 , d 1 . The method to show this is to introduce the set AUTOSAT of formulas in F which satisfy themselves. We study the complexity of this set for various fragments of second-order loeic. For first-order logic FOL with unbounded alternation of quantifiers AUTOSAT is PSpace complete. For first-order logic FOL n with alternation of quantifiers bounded by n , AUTOSAT is definable in AA . AUTOSAT) is definable in AA for some c 1 , d 1. (shrink)