To integrate social robots in real-life contexts, it is crucial that they are accepted by the users. Acceptance is not only related to the functionality of the robot but also strongly depends on how the user experiences the interaction. Established design principles from usability and user experience research can be applied to the realm of human–robot interaction, to design robot behavior for the comfort and well-being of the user. Focusing the design on these aspects alone, however, comes with certain ethical (...) challenges, especially regarding the user’s privacy and autonomy. Based on an example scenario of human–robot interaction in elder care, this paper discusses how established design principles can be used in social robotic design. It then juxtaposes these with ethical considerations such as privacy and user autonomy. Combining user experience and ethical perspectives, we propose adjustments to the original design principles and canvass our own design recommendations for a positive and ethically acceptable social human–robot interaction design. In doing so, we show that positive user experience and ethical design may be sometimes at odds, but can be reconciled in many cases, if designers are willing to adjust and amend time-tested design principles. (shrink)

While recent studies suggest that augmented learning employing smart glasses increases overall learning performance, in this paper we are more interested in the question which repercussions ALSG will have on the type of knowledge that is acquired. Drawing from the theoretical discussion within epistemology about the differences between Knowledge-How and Knowledge-That, we will argue that ALSG furthers understanding as a series of epistemic and non-epistemic Knowing-Hows. Focusing on academic knowledge acquisition, especially with respect to early curriculum experiments in various STEM (...) disciplines as investigated by the BmBF “Be-Greifen” project, we take the Be-Greifen holo.lab setup as an example for showing that ALSG shifts the learning focus from propositional knowledge to epistemic competencies, which can be differentiated as “grasping”, “wielding”, and “transferring”. (shrink)

To construct their first lexicon, infants must determine the relationship between native phonological variation and the meanings of words. This process is arguably more complex for bilingual learners who are often confronted with phonological conflict: phonological variation that is lexically relevant in one language may be lexically irrelevant in the other. In a series of four experiments, the present study investigated English-Mandarin bilingual infants’ abilities to negotiate phonological conflict introduced by learning both a tone and a non-tone language. In a (...) novel word learning task, bilingual children were tested on their sensitivity to tone variation in English and Mandarin contexts. Their abilities to interpret tone variation in a language-dependent manner were compared to those of monolingual Mandarin learning infants. Results demonstrated that at 12 to 13 months, bilingual infants demonstrated the ability to bind tone to word meanings in Mandarin, but to disregard tone variation when learning new words in English. In contrast, monolingual learners of Mandarin did not show evidence of integrating tones into word meanings in Mandarin at the same age even though they were learning a tone language. However, a tone discrimination paradigm confirmed that monolingual Mandarin learning infants were able to tell these tones apart at 12 to 13 months under a different set of conditions. Later, at 17 to 18 months, monolingual Mandarin learners were able to bind tone variation to word meanings when learning new words. Our findings are discussed in terms of cognitive adaptations associated with bilingualism that may ease the negotiation of phonological conflict and facilitate precocious uptake of certain properties of each language. (shrink)

People have little difficulty distinguishing effects they cause and those they do not. An important question is what underlies this sense of agency. A prevailing idea is that the sense of agency arises from a comparison between a predictive representation of the effect and the actual effect that occurs, with a clear match between the two producing a strong sense of agency. Although there is general agreement on this comparison process, one important theoretical issue that has yet to be fully (...) determined is whether these computations are consciously performed. Here, we studied this issue by requiring participants to perform a simple judgment of agency task under conditions of different concurrent working memory load. Working memory operations are known to tax conscious cognitive resources. We found that agency judgments were moderated by working memory load, with lower agency ratings being observed in the high load condition, suggesting that the sense of agency is dependent on the availability of conscious cognitive resources. An examination of the time-course of this load effect suggests that it is the construction of the mental representation of the predicted effect which is particularly dependent on said resources. (shrink)

This article explores sex selective abortion as a form of structural violence within the broader notion of women's ‘protection’ in contemporary India. While SSA tends to be framed more generally within ethical and choice-based frameworks around abortion access and reproductive ‘rights’, and specifically in India around preference for sons as a discriminatory, cultural, technological misogyny, this article argues that sex selective abortion in India needs to be understood as an outcome of broader systemic economic, political and social processes. The deepening (...) of neoliberal values through state policies has impacted significantly on social relations, shaping SSA as a manifestation of structural violence. State-driven policies in India reflect a neoliberal governmentality through state patriarchy that is implicit within the neoliberal developmental, governmental and capitalist paradigm of contemporary India. This article argues that SSA is structurally produced and therefore cannot be remedied through awareness-raising strategies such as beti bachao or financial inclusion as a means to ‘protect’ or ‘save the girl child’. Indeed, it is neoliberal economic forces that actively, though seemingly inadvertently, promote anti-women, sex selective abortion as a reproductive strategy, which is then disciplined through neoliberal governmentality. This highlights SSA as a form of gendered and structural, rather than discriminatory, violence. (shrink)

Wie lässt sich der Bereich des Privaten heute genau beschreiben? Welchen Wert besitzt Privatheit in digitalisierten Gesellschaften für den Einzelnen und die Gesellschaft als Ganzes? Welche Werte und Lebensformen werden durch Privatheit geschützt, welche eingeschränkt? Entstehen durch die Informationsasymmetrie zwischen Technologieunternehmen, staatlichen Verdatungsinstitutionen und Verbrauchern/Bürgern möglicherweise neue Machtstrukturen? Welche rechtlichen Implikationen ergeben sich hieraus? Dieser Band geht diesen und anderen Fragen, die sich im Hinblick auf die etablierte Gleichung von Freiheit und Privatheit stellen, nach und versucht Antworten zu finden.

Eine Neuverortung des Privaten, wie im Titel dieses Bands angekündigt – was hat es damit auf sich? Wer oder was sind die treibenden Kräfte hinter dieser Entwicklung? Warum ist sie notwendig oder zumindest sinnvoll? Was steht dabei auf dem Spiel?

Defining and identifying causal intervention effects for transmissible infectious disease outcomes is challenging because a treatment – such as a vaccine – given to one individual may affect the infection outcomes of others. Epidemiologists have proposed causal estimands to quantify effects of interventions under contagion using a two-person partnership model. These simple conceptual models have helped researchers develop causal estimands relevant to clinical evaluation of vaccine effects. However, many of these partnership models are formulated under structural assumptions that preclude realistic (...) infectious disease transmission dynamics, limiting their conceptual usefulness in defining and identifying causal treatment effects in empirical intervention trials. In this paper, we propose causal intervention effects in two-person partnerships under arbitrary infectious disease transmission dynamics, and give nonparametric identification results showing how effects can be estimated in empirical trials using time-to-infection or binary outcome data. The key insight is that contagion is a causal phenomenon that induces conditional independencies on infection outcomes that can be exploited for the identification of clinically meaningful causal estimands. These new estimands are compared to existing quantities, and results are illustrated using a realistic simulation of an HIV vaccine trial. (shrink)

Wie lässt sich der Bereich des Privaten heute genau beschreiben? Welchen Wert besitzt Privatheit in digitalisierten Gesellschaften für den Einzelnen und die Gesellschaft als Ganzes? Welche Werte und Lebensformen werden durch Privatheit geschützt, welche eingeschränkt? Entstehen durch die Informationsasymmetrie zwischen Technologieunternehmen, staatlichen Verdatungsinstitutionen und Verbrauchern/Bürgern möglicherweise neue Machtstrukturen? Welche rechtlichen Implikationen ergeben sich hieraus? Dieser Band geht diesen und anderen Fragen, die sich im Hinblick auf die etablierte Gleichung von Freiheit und Privatheit stellen, nach und versucht Antworten zu finden.

Das „Handbuch Verantwortung“ vermittelt einen Überblick über Themen, Positionen und die bisherigen einschlägigen Arbeiten in der deutsch- und englischsprachigen Verantwortungsforschung. Es befasst sich mit Geschichte und Etymologie der Verantwortung und schildert, inwiefern der Verantwortungsbegriff zum Grundvokabular des ethischen Denkens gehört. So wird die Verantwortung historisch und genealogisch lokalisiert und ein Fundament für den wissenschaftlichen Austausch geschaffen. Wann immer von Verantwortung die Rede ist, spielen Begriffe wie Freiheit, Zurechnung, Schuld oder Pflicht eine wesentliche Rolle, da durch sie der Verantwortungsbegriff definiert wird. (...) Diese und andere Begriffe werden in dem Handbuch thematisiert und sortiert. Darüber hinaus werden nicht nur unterschiedlichen Typen und Arten der Verantwortung behandelt, wie z.B. die individuelle und kollektive Verantwortung. Der Leser wird auch mit den wichtigsten Handlungsbereichen der Verantwortung vertraut gemacht, zu denen u.a. die politische und ethische Verantwortung gehören, aber auch die Rolle des Verantwortungsprinzips in Erziehung, Medien, Technik und Wissenschaft. Und nicht zuletzt steht in dem Handbuch die praktische Seite der Verantwortung im Fokus der Aufmerksamkeit. Ein maßgebliches Ziel ist es, den Beitrag zu thematisieren, den das Verantwortungsprinzip für den Umgang mit Problemen der Menschenrechte, Weltarmut oder den Klimawandel besitzt. (shrink)

Considers the future of conservation and its connection to the human sciences. This volume brings together the findings from a five-year research project that seeks to reimagine the relationship between conservation knowledge and the humanistic study of the material world. The project, "Cultures of Conservation," was supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and included events, seminars, and an artist-in-residence. The effort to conserve things amid change is part of the human struggle with the nature of matter. For as long (...) as people have made things and kept things, they have also cared for and repaired them. Today, conservators use a variety of tools and categories developed over the last one hundred and fifty years to do this work, but in the coming decades, new kinds of materials and a new scale of change will pose unprecedented challenges. Looking ahead to this moment from the perspectives of history, philosophy, materials science, and anthropology, this volume explores new possibilities for both conservation and the humanities in the rethinking of active matter. (shrink)

This paper discusses the ethical implications of perverse incentives with regard to autonomous driving. We define perverse incentives as a feature of an action, technology, or social policy that invites behavior which negates the primary goal of the actors initiating the action, introducing a certain technology, or implementing a social policy. As a special form of means-end-irrationality, perverse incentives are to be avoided from a prudential standpoint, as they prove to be directly self-defeating: They are not just a form of (...) unintended side effect that must be balanced against the main goal or value to be realized by an action, technology, or policy. Instead, they directly cause the primary goals of the actors—i.e., the goals that they ultimately pursue with the action, technology, or policy—to be “worse achieved”. In this paper, we elaborate on this definition and distinguish three ideal-typical phases of adverse incentives, where only in the last one the threshold for a perverse incentive is crossed. In addition, we discuss different possible relevant actors and their goals in implementing autonomous vehicles. We conclude that even if some actors do not pursue traffic safety as their primary goal, as part of a responsibility network they incur the responsibility to act on the common primary goal of the network, which we argue to be traffic safety. (shrink)

Robots as social companions in close proximity to humans have a strong potential of becoming more and more prevalent in the coming years, especially in the realms of elder day care, child rearing, and education. As human beings, we have the fascinating ability to emotionally bond with various counterparts, not exclusively with other human beings, but also with animals, plants, and sometimes even objects. Therefore, we need to answer the fundamental ethical questions that concern human-robot-interactions per se, and we need (...) to address how we conceive of »good lives«, as more and more of the aspects of our daily lives will be interwoven with social robots. (shrink)

This paper distinguishes between two main questions regarding the notion of privacy: “What is privacy?” and “Why do/should we value privacy?”. In developing a social-ontological recognitional model of privacy, it gives an answer to the first question. According to the SORM, Privacy is a second order quality of roles within social practices. It is a function of who is or should be recognized as a “standard authority”. Enjoying standard authority means to have the right to interpret and contest role behavior (...) and role obligations within a specific practice, as well as evaluate the normative structure, the fundamental practice norms as well as the roles and their status. The SORM utilizes the concept of standard authority to explicate privacy with regard to two categories that capture the relevant phenomena of privacy: decisional and informational privacy. Within a practice, an actor is said to have decisional privacy if she as a BCR does not recognize bearers of accidental roles as standard authorities. Vice versa, an actor is said to enjoy informational privacy if all other BCRs recognize her as a standard authority. Additionally, the requirement of mutual recognition by the practice participants as standard authorities introduces a “weak normativity” into the theory, which can be used to identify deficient privacy arrangements within practices. (shrink)

This paper discusses the ethical implications of perverse incentives with regard to autonomous driving. We define perverse incentives as a feature of an action, technology, or social policy that invites behavior which negates the primary goal of the actors initiating the action, introducing a certain technology, or implementing a social policy. As a special form of means-end-irrationality, perverse incentives are to be avoided from a prudential standpoint, as they prove to be directly self-defeating: They are not just a form of (...) unintended side effect that must be balanced against the main goal or value to be realized by an action, technology, or policy. Instead, they directly cause the primary goals of the actors—i.e., the goals that they ultimately pursue with the action, technology, or policy—to be “worse achieved”. In this paper, we elaborate on this definition and distinguish three ideal-typical phases of adverse incentives, where only in the last one the threshold for a perverse incentive is crossed. In addition, we discuss different possible relevant actors and their goals in implementing autonomous vehicles. We conclude that even if some actors do not pursue traffic safety as their primary goal, as part of a responsibility network they incur the responsibility to act on the common primary goal of the network, which we argue to be traffic safety. (shrink)

In some languages every statement must contain a specification of the type of evidence on which it is based: for example, whether the speaker saw it, or heard it, or inferred it from indirect evidence, or learnt it from someone else. This grammatical reference to information source is called 'evidentiality', and is one of the least described grammatical categories. Evidentiality systems differ in how complex they are: some distinguish just two terms (eyewitness and noneyewitness, or reported and everything else), while (...) others have six or even more terms. Evidentiality is a category in its own right, and not a subcategory of epistemic or some other modality, nor of tense-aspect. Every language has some way of referring to the source of information, but not every language has grammatical evidentiality. In English expressions such as I guess, they say, I hear that, the alleged are not obligatory and do not constitute a grammatical system. Similar expressions in other languages may provide historical sources for evidentials. True evidentials, by contrast, form a grammatical system. In the North Arawak language Tariana an expression such as "the dog bit the man" must be augmented by a grammatical suffix indicating whether the event was seen, or heard, or assumed, or reported. This book provides the first exhaustive cross-linguistic typological study of how languages deal with the marking of information source. Examples are drawn from over 500 languages from all over the world, several of them based on the author's original fieldwork. Professor Aikhenvald also considers the role evidentiality plays in human cognition, and the ways in which evidentiality influences human perception of the world.. This is an important book on an intriguing subject. It will interest anthropologists, cognitive psychologists and philosophers, as well as linguists. (shrink)

Matthias Braun’s1 concise reflections on the ethical challenges posed by digital twins in medicine are briefly supplemented below by a thought that, in my view, seems to run through the text like a thread, but whose ethical implications are not explicitly stated. Braun states in the final paragraph that ‘digital twins do not fundamentally threaten the embodied person’, at least not as long as the person in question has ‘control over her simulated representation’. I agree with this, but would like (...) to point out that it is not just the embodied person who has control. Regardless of whether the person embodied by the digital twin has permanent control over it, which enables them to revoke their agreed representation at any time, the company that developed or uses the digital twin also has control over it. The control of the company or companies and other involved parties lies in the fact that data and information are …. (shrink)

Die Vorstellung, dass wir mehrere Menschen zugleich lieben können, wird in modernen, westlich geprägten Gesellschaften sowohl als fast trivialerweise wahr anerkannt, als auch als grundsätzlich verfehlt abgelehnt. Während beispielsweise kein Zweifel daran besteht, dass wir üblicherweise unsere Eltern und zeitgleich etwaige Geschwister sowie umgekehrt Eltern für gewöhnlich alle ihre Kinder lieben und wir zudem zumeist mehrere enge und tiefe Freundschaften pflegen, ist die gesellschaftlich vorherrschende Auffassung von romantischer Liebe weitgehend von der Idee geprägt, dass es sich ausschließlich um exklusive Zweierbeziehungen (...) handeln könne. Darüber hinaus haftet allen von der romantischen exklusiven Paarbeziehung abweichenden Formen, Liebe in Beziehungskonstellationen zu leben, eine diese moralisch mindestens als implizit fragwürdig, wenn nicht sogar offen als verwerflich kennzeichnende Be- beziehungsweise Verurteilung an. Tatsächlich gibt es allerdings viele Alternativen zur Monogamie. Der vermutlich berühmtesten, der Polyamorie, widmet sich der vorliegende Schwerpunkt. Das Wort „Polyamorie“ ist ein griechisch-lateinischer Hybrid (griech. polýs, viel/mehrere; lat. amor, Liebe) und die Bezeichnung für das zeitgleiche und konsensuelle Eingehen mehrerer Liebesbeziehungen. „Polycule“ ist das englische Kunstwort für eine ganze Reihe deutscher Ausdrücke für polyamore Beziehungsmodelle wie etwa auch „konsensuell- nichtmonogames Beziehungsnetzwerk“, „Sorgegemeinschaft“, „Wahlfamilie“ oder „Polykül“. Polyamore Beziehungsmodelle sind demnach breit gefächert und können letztlich alle möglichen Beziehungskonstellationen zwischen Personen umfassen, die einander auf die eine oder andere liebende Weise nahestehen. Dieser Schwerpunkt wirft vereinzelt Schlaglichter der philosophischen und ethischen Reflexion auf einige der Fragen und Herausforderungen, die sich hinsichtlich ethischer Polyamorie stellen beziehungsweise die mit dieser Form der nichtmonogamen Beziehungspraxis und -haltung einhergehen. Unsere Autor*innen eröffnen Diskussionsräume über einige grundlegende Aspekte einer Auseinandersetzung mit dem Phänomen der Polyamorie. Damit stecken wir mit diesem Schwerpunkt das große Feld der philosophischen und ethischen Analyse rund um die Polyamorie lediglich grob ab – eine systematische und umfassende philosophische Auseinandersetzung mit dem Phänomen der Polyamorie muss an anderer Stelle erfolgen. Nichtsdestotrotz erleichtern wir mit diesem Schwerpunkt den Einstieg in die vielfältigen philosophischen und ethischen Fragen, die sich mit dem Phänomen der Polyamorie ergeben und bereiten den Grund für eine dezidierte und genaue Auseinandersetzung mit den Herausforderungen, vor die wir uns mit ihr gestellt sehen. (shrink)

Following the recent practice turn in privacy research, informational privacy is increasingly analyzed with regard to the “appropriate flow of information” within a given practice, which preserves the “contextual integrity” of that practice (Nissenbaum, 2010, p. 149; 2015). Such a practice-theoretical take on privacy emphasizes the normative structure of practices as well as its structural injustices and power asymmetries, rather than focusing on the intentions and moral considerations of individual or institutional actors. Since privacy norms are seen to be institutionalized (...) via the role obligations of the practice's participants, this approach can analyze structural and systematic privacy infringements in terms of “defective role performances and defective social relations” (Roessler & Mokrosinska, 2013, p. 780). -/- Unfortunately, it is still often somewhat unclear what this exactly means within the context of informational privacy, why these performances and relations are defective and for whom. This raises the common objection of a so-called “practice positivism” (Applbaum, 1999, p. 51), that is, the difficulty of practice–theoretical accounts to take a practice-independent standpoint, from which to normatively evaluate the existing practice norms themselves. For example, Nissenbaum herself initially argues for a “presumption in favor of the status quo” with respect to the appropriateness and flow of privacy norms within a practice (Nissenbaum, 2004, p. 127). Such a “practice conservatism” (Nissenbaum, 2010, p. 169) comes dangerously close to committing a naturalistic fallacy, if not undergirded by practice-external criteria (which is ultimately what she does). -/- Merely resorting to existing practice norms to assess what defective role performances amount to, only shifts the question from how to recognize an appropriate flow of information to the question of how to recognize those defective role performances and social relations. Against this backdrop, the central aim of this article is to shed light on this question without resorting to practice-independent first principles or far-reaching universalistic anthropological assumptions. For this, I will analyze the notion of “defective role performances and social relations” in terms of social pathologies.1 Doing so has two advantages: First of all, it can draw on already existing concepts and distinctions, which help to categorize the different levels of analysis that exist in informational privacy research and situate the notion of “defective role performances” within them (Section 1). Second, those concepts and distinctions can serve as a basis for establishing a typology of phenomena with regard to deficient practices of informational privacy (Section 4). (shrink)

Sexual and gender minorities in contemporary India are formed in the interstices between the neoliberal, Hindutva state; transnational discourses of liberal democracy and sexual ‘rights’; as well as cosmopolitan culture and global LGBT movements. As is evident in recent court judgments and legislation, particularly since 2014, postcolonial Hindu nationalism has created cultural conditions where forms of queer gender are permissible while queer sexuality is generally unacceptable. In recent years, significant developments have focused on transgender communities, complicating activism surrounding sexual and (...) gender identities. By positing some identities as state-sanctioned acceptable citizens and others as not, certain ‘transgender’ individuals are conceptualised as bearers of rights while finding other facets of their identities discriminated against and maintained as illegal. The 2014 Supreme Court NALSA v. Union of India judgment and The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Bill, 2016 passed by the Lok Sabha, alongside further judgments and legislation affecting wider LGBT communities, have kept discourses fixed on sexual and gender identities and their relationship to Indian citizenship at the forefront of discussions of gender justices and injustices in India today. Focusing on recent judicial and legislative developments, this paper examines how transgender rights are being granted in the context of the neoliberal, Hindutva state and considers which forms of transgender identity are currently being conceptualised as legitimate and authentic in such discourses, which can serve to bolster larger right-wing visions and ideologies of the nation and its citizens. It contemplates the ways in which gender ‘justices’, framed in relation to both transnational LGBT rights discourses and right-wing agendas, are conceptualised and played out on the bodies of sexual and gender minorities. (shrink)

Making use of the liberal concept of civil disobedience, this paper assesses, under which circumstances instances of illegal digital protest—called “hacktivism”—can be justified vis-à-vis the pro tanto political obligation to obey the law. For this, the paper draws on the three main criteria for liberal civil disobedience—publicity, nonviolence, and fidelity to law—and examines how these can be transferred to the realm of the digital. One of the main disanalogies between street and cyberspace protests is the tendency of hacktivists to remain (...) anonymous, which in turn calls into question their fidelity to law (the third criterion). The paper argues that there are functionally equivalent alternatives to what can be called the “acceptance-of-legal-consequences-condition” (ALCC) associated with the fidelity to law. As a result, the ALCC is not a necessary condition for hacktivists to showcase their fidelity to law, thereby resolving the apparent disanalogy. (shrink)

„Polyamorie“ ist die Bezeichnung für das explizite und konsensuelle Eingehen mehrerer Liebesbeziehungen zur selben Zeit. Mit polyamoren Konstellationen korreliert, dafür wird in diesem Beitrag argumentiert, eine Ethik der Beziehungsgestaltung und sie schließen darüber hinaus für gewöhnlich das Teilen äquivalenter gesellschaftspolitischer Prämissen ein, auf die im Folgenden an einigen Stellen hingewiesen wird. Eine Ethik der Polyamorie umfasst zwei Eigenschaften: Polyethiken brechen zum einen mit dem traditionellen Verständnis vom Individuum oder Handlungssubjekt. Ich werde zeigen, dass polyamoren Beziehungsnetzwerken und der Ethik, die in (...) ihnen idealiter gelebt wird, ein relationales Denken zugrunde liegt. Zum anderen zeichnen sich Polyethiken durch ein besonderes Augenmerk auf die Beziehungen, die als poly bezeichnet werden können, aus, in denen typischerweise eine Reihe von Werten realisiert werden. Zuvor gilt es allerdings, das Verständnis von Liebe zu definieren, das nach meinem Verständnis einem Polycule bzw. polyamoren Beziehungsnetzwerken im Allgemeinen zugrunde liegt. (shrink)

Der Titel dieses Aufsatzes mag zunächst befremden, gar als unsachliche Bösartigkeit aufgefaßt werden, doch „Vorurteil“ und „Wahn“ sind im Rahmen von Psychologie bzw. Sozialpsychologie und Psychopathologie definierte Begriffe. Untersucht man unter diesem Aspekt den mathematischen Grundlagenstreit in diesem Jahrhundert, der richtiger „logisch-mathematischer Grundlagenstreit“ zu nennen wäre, dann wird ein Argumentationsklima deutlich, das von Vorurteils- und Wahnstrukturen geprägt ist, das sich zu Ungungsten der empirisch orientierten Begründungsposition auswirkte. Sollte sich angesichts erneuter Stimmen für die empirische Position wieder eine Grundlagendiskussion entwickeln, wäre (...) das Argumentationsniveau zu verbessern. Hierzu gehört zunächst die Erwägung von Alternativen, besonders bezüglich möglicher Gegenstände von Logik und Mathematik. Weiterhin wären erkenntnistheoretische Konzepte zu entwickeln, die dem eigenständigen Charakter von „reiner“ Logik und Mathematik gerecht werden, aber dennoch empirische Begründung ermöglichen. (shrink)

Why do people comply with coronavirus disease 2019 public health guidance? This study considers cultural-psychological foundations of variation in beliefs about motivations for such compliance. Specifically, we focused on beliefs about two sources of prosocial motivation: desire to protect others and obligation to society. Across two studies, we observed that the relative emphasis on the desire to protect others as an explanation for compliance was greater in the United States settings associated with cultural ecologies of abstracted independence than in Chinese (...) settings associated with cultural ecologies of embedded interdependence. We observed these patterns for explanations of psychological experience of both others and self, and for compliance with mandates for both social distancing and face masks. Discussion of results considers both practical implications for motivating compliance with public health guidance and theoretical implications for denaturalizing prevailing accounts of prosocial motivation. (shrink)

Nine years into the tumultuous life of Hong Kong as a special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China, it has become clearer what role Hong Kong plays in China’s modernization. This paper argues that Hong Kong’s role is that of a transforming catalyst. In dealing with the affairs of this city, Beijing from time to time has to put aside its normal instincts. This creates opportunities with potentially far-reaching consequences for the nation as a whole even though questions (...) have often been raised as to whether “two systems” will survive as Hong Kong becomes more integrated into “one China.” Hong Kong’s plight is difficult and there are constant risks of being overwhelmed by the much larger mainland system. Nevertheless, just looking at what may be seen as Hong Kong’s losses in the process of integration will prevent a deeper examination of how the mainland has been affected at the same time. Hong Kong presents Beijing with many challenging issues as well that go to the core of party ideology and practices. This is not to say that Beijing intends Hong Kong to be a pacesetter for political reform on the mainland, but at least in one corner of the country where debates are in the open and where the people’s behavior is different, the result is that Hong Kong has a gradual transforming effect on China’s modernization by forcing deliberation, debate, and possibly even behavioral change on some of the most sensitive issues to the Chinese leadership. (shrink)

Researches on Kant as Example of Lack of Methods Arising Through One's Own Fault. The researches on Kant are one example of the high degree of differences in opinions about mentalities. The lack of methods is one reason. Kant researchers have regretted this too. But as available methods are not developed, these regrets are not very convincing. For instance, the old method to sort concepts in different degrees of abstraction is not developed as a method of interpretation. This method will (...) be exemplified for the question whether Kant was idealist or realist. It could have been an old well-known method as a method of interpretation, but this has not yet been done. Other reasons for this lack of methods are to be inquired. Some philosophical positions presuppose the lack of methods and this could be a fundamental reason for the lack of methods of interpretation. (shrink)

This book is an English-to-Chinese translation of 'Origen Against Plato', by Mark Julian Edwards.

This book is a German-to-Chinese translation of 'Augustine', by Christoph Horn.

Making use of the liberal concept of civil disobedience, this paper assesses, under which circumstances instances of illegal digital protest—called “hacktivism”—can be justified vis-à-vis the pro t...