Vulnerability is often conceived of as a valuable category countering the ratiocentric and ableist bias in traditional ethical and political theories. Frequently, social formations are ascribed primary responsibility to respond to vulnerability since relevant theories go against normative individualism. However, generalizing norms and hegemonic structures tend to determine the notion, and thus the administration, of vulnerability. The paper argues that the tacit hypostatization and conceptual fixation of vulnerability can generate dialectical shifts that increase vulnerability precisely by emphasizing it. This is (...) illustrated with examples such as exclusive recognition, stereotyping, social control, a disempowering ethics, and the problematic opposition of vulnerability and resilience. While an awareness for the inherent vulnerability of embodied beings is a crucial prerequisite for preventing us from establishing discriminating notions of “special“ vulnerability, the inner dialectic of the concept cannot be remedied by a simple recipe such as the assertion that we are all vulnerable. (shrink)

The “One Health” initiative promises to combine different health-related issues concerning humans and animals in an overarching concept and in related practices to the benefit of both humans and animals. Far from dismissing One Health, this paper nevertheless argues that different veterinary interventions are determined by social practices and connected expectations and are, thus, hardly compliant with only one single conceptualization of health, as the One Health concept suggests. One Health relies on a naturalistic understanding of health focusing on similar (...) bodies that show a similar etiology. However, logics, normativity, and practices exhibit differences when it comes to combatting infectious diseases, maintaining productivity of livestock animals or preventing companion animals from suffering. Therefore, drawing from Charles Rosenberg’s groundbreaking texts on framing disease, we suggest to conceive of health as dispersed in different frames. Thus, this paper proposes to interpret health as complex and multi-layered concept. We distinguish and introduce an objectivist, a functional, and a sentientistic frame of health. Instead of reducing the differential veterinary practices to one paradigmatic understanding, health is seen as a model case of Wittgenstein’s concept of family resemblance. Different and distinct perspectives on veterinary medicine show sufficient overlapping that allows for a common conceptualization, but there is not one single underlying logic suitable to understand and ethically reflect all veterinary interventions. This differentiability promises to reduce moral stress in veterinary professionals since it allows the interpretation of various, seemingly contradicting practices as dependent on multi-layered and socially determined scopes of responsibility. (shrink)

The concept of moral individualism is part of the foundational structure of most prominent modern moral philosophies. It rests on the assumption that moral obligations towards a respective individual are constituted solely by her or his capacities. Hence, these obligations are independent of any ἔθος, of any shared ethical sense and social significations. The moral agent and the individual with moral status are construed as subjects outside of any social relation or lifeworld significations. This assumption has been contested in the (...) last decades by diverse authors with very different approaches to moral philosophy. In the last years, an increasing number of philosophers like Cora Diamond and Alice Crary, but also phenomenologists like Paul Ricœur, Klaus Held, and Bernhard Waldenfels question the presupposition that individual capacities are the agent-neutral and context-neutral ground of moral considerations. This critique of moral individualism in different contemporary discourses shows a striking similarity between Wittgensteinian and phenomenological philosophers as their critical inquiry of prominent theories like the ones by Immanuel Kant, John Rawls, Peter Singer or Tom Regan is derived from mostly implicitly efficacious Aristotelian theorems. Telling examples are the ἔθος as pre-given normative infrastructure, the ἕξις as individual internalization of the ethos, the φρόνησις described as a specific practical know-how in contrast to scientific knowledge, and not at least the definition of the human being as ζῷον πολιτικόν. However, the Aristotelian sources of this movement have not yet been scrutinized systematically. This paper aims, first, to reveal the significance of these sources to make them visible and, second, to contribute to the notion of the topicality of Aristotelian philosophy in current debates on ethics. (shrink)

The Coal Seam Gas extraction industry is developing rapidly within the Surat Basin in southern Queensland, Australia, with licenses already approved for tenements covering more than 24,000 km2. Much of this land is used for a broad range of agricultural purposes and the need for coexistence between the farm and gas industries has been the source of much conflict. Whilst much research has been undertaken into the environmental and economic impacts of CSG, little research has looked into the issues of (...) coexistence between farmers and the CSG industry in the shared space that is a farm business, a home and a resource extraction network. We conducted three workshops with farmers from across a broad region undergoing CSG development to explore farmers’ perceptions of some of the issues arising from large scale land use change. Workshops explored the importance of place identity and landscape aesthetics for farmers, farmers’ acceptance and coping with change, and possible benefits from off-farm income. We found that farmers believed that place identity was not well understood by CSG staff from non-rural backgrounds and that farmers struggled to explain some concerns because of the different way they interpreted their landscape. Furthermore, high staff turnover, and the extensive use of contractors also impacted on communications. These factors were the cause of much frustration and farmers felt that this has led to severe impacts on mental health and wellbeing. Farmers felt that a change in culture within the CSG companies will be required if engagement with farmers is to improve and that efforts to employ local people in these communications was helping this. The workshops also identified a range of issues perceived by farmers arising from increased traffic volumes, impacts to mental health and wellbeing, place identity and loss of water resources for farmers. Finally, it was suggested that scientists and agricultural industry groups will need to work closely with farmers to develop understanding of these emerging issues and to develop solutions that are timely and relevant. (shrink)

Information can be public among a group. Whether or not information is public matters, for example, for accounts of interdependent rational choice, of communication, and of joint intention. A standard analysis of public information identifies it with (some variant of) common belief. The latter notion is stipulatively defined as an infinite conjunction: for p to be commonly believed is for it to believed by all members of a group, for all members to believe that all members believe it, and so (...) forth. This analysis is often presupposed without much argument in philosophy. Theoretical entrenchment or intuitions about cases might give some traction on the question, but give little insight about why the identification holds, if it does. The strategy of this paper is to characterize a practical-normative role for information being public, and show that the only things that play that role are (variants of) common belief as stipulatively characterized. In more detail: a functional role for “taking a proposition for granted” in non-isolated decision making is characterized. I then present some minimal conditions under which such an attitude is correctly held. The key assumption links this attitude to beliefs about what is public. From minimal a priori principles, we can argue that a proposition being public among a group entails common commitment to believe among that group. Later sections explore partial converses to this result, the factivity of publicity and publicity from the perspective of outsiders to the group, and objections to the aprioricity of the result deriving from a posteriori existential presuppositions. (shrink)

Bazzocchi disposes the text of the Tractatus in a user-friendly manner, exactly as Wittgenstein's decimals advise. This discloses the logical form of the book by distinct reading units, linked into a fashioned hierarchical tree. The text becomes much clearer and every reader can enjoy, finally, its formal and literary qualities.

1. Sae sidae rŭl yŏrŏ gan saramdŭl -- 2. Ŏdum ŭi sidae.

A directory of archives and manuscript repositories, with links to web pages for the repositories and to online finding aids. Searchable by: collection name; city; state; National Inventory of Documentary Sources (NIDS) number; and National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections (NUCMC) number.

Est-il possible de trouver une herméneutique œcuménique pour que toutes les confessions chrétiennes puissent lire les Saintes Ecritures ensemble ? C'est à cette question que tente de répondre l'A. dans cet article. Après avoir formulé précisément la nature de sa problématique théologique en introduction, l'A. axe sa première partie sur l'état actuel de la question posée. En seconde partie, il propose un modèle possible d'herméneutique transconfessionnelle. En dernière partie, il procède à une étude comparative entrre les diverses confessions sur la (...) réflexion scripturaire. (shrink)

The AGI alignment problem has a bimodal distribution of outcomes with most outcomes clustering around the poles of total success and existential, catastrophic failure. Consequently, attempts to solve AGI alignment should, all else equal, prefer false negatives (ignoring research programs that would have been successful) to false positives (pursuing research programs that will unexpectedly fail). Thus, we propose adopting a policy of responding to points of philosophical and practical uncertainty associated with the alignment problem by limiting and choosing necessary assumptions (...) to reduce the risk of false positives. Herein we explore in detail two relevant points of uncertainty that AGI alignment research hinges on---meta-ethical uncertainty and uncertainty about mental phenomena---and show how to reduce false positives in response to them. (shrink)

In a recent article Duncan Purves, Ryan Jenkins, and B. J. Strawser argue that in order for a decision in war to be just, or indeed the decision to resort to war to be just, it must be the case that the decision is made for the right reasons. Furthermore, they argue that this requirement holds regardless of how much good is produced by said action. In this essay I argue that their argument is flawed, in that it mistakes what (...) makes an agent morally good for what makes an act morally good. I argue that the main thrust of Purves et al.’s argument in fact undermines the conclusion they wish to draw, and that the reasons for one’s action do not make an in principle difference to the morality of actions in war. I further argue that this position undermines the traditional ad bellum just war constraint of right intention, and that the morality of actions in war is, at core, only concerned with outcomes. I conclude by clarifying that one’s reasons for action do in fact matter when deciding to enter war or kill in war, but only because one’s reasons significantly impact the way in which one acts. The purpose of this paper is to clear the theoretical space by showing why intentions/reasons do not in principle matter when assessing the morality of war (or killing), but this should not be taken as an argument that we should ignore intentions/reasons altogether. (shrink)

We used a participatory approach and a rural livelihoods framework to explore the knowledge and capacity of southeast Queensland graziers to adapt to climate change. After being presented with information on climate change projections, participants identified biophysical and socio-economic opportunities and challenges to adaptation. Graziers identified key opportunities as components of resilience, and in many cases were options that they had some knowledge of either from their own region or elsewhere in the grazing industry. The major constraint to adaptation was (...) the lack of financial capital: with low profitability of the industry and high land costs restricting their capacity to diversify and exploit economies of scale. These constraints were exacerbated by the pressure many graziers experienced from the demand for land as a result of urban expansion. While the focus of the workshop was on the impact of climate change and capacity to adapt, many of the issues raised by graziers were pressures not solely related to climate change. Adaptation needs to be considered in light of the appropriate level and spatial scale required to tackle the issues identified. Policy needs to support good natural resource management, rural amenity, and food and fibre production close to urban population and markets in the face of urban encroachment. (shrink)

The paper begins with the prerequisite assumption that social deprivation is a fragile and porous category. Thus, our hypothesis is, that how people are affected by the restrictions against the spreading of the coronavirus is often discussed in far too general and simplistic terms. It is often taken as a given, that the virus and the restriction measures not only have caused severe difficulties for us all (due to social distancing, fear, affected health, etc.), but that the measures have exacerbated (...) already previously existing forms of social deprivation. Therefore, it is assumed that marginalized groups are particularly affected by these effects of the pandemic. Two major German studies show the alleged effects of the relevant measures on adolescents and emerging adults (COPSY and FIBS) against the backdrop of social and economic deprivation; their results confirmed that social deprivation entails a higher degree of being affected by the pandemic.However, this picture becomes thwarted by considering the results of 10 narrative interviews, that were conducted by us with emerging adults in a German vocational training institute between April and August 2021 and showed variegated forms of experiencing issues related to the pandemic. In our analysis, we used the method of objective hermeneutics. In this paper, we present our considerations by outlining two contrastive experiences with the Covid-19 pandemic, in order to highlight the divergent ways in which the pandemic has been experienced even among individuals who previously had been affected by social deprivation – at least at first glance – in similar ways. The conceptual lens through which we interpret these two examples is, firstly, the one of precariousness and precarity (Butler 2009). And secondly, the concept of recognition derived from Honneth’s pertinent theory and Butler’s account of recognizability will play a pivotal role. While Honneth’s approach allows us to emphasize the normative and existential role of the fulfilment of our basic desire for recognition and the detrimental implications of disregard, Butler provides us with the means to thoroughly analyse the socio-historical conditions of misrecognition and social invisibility. Moreover, Butler focuses specifically on the recognizability of precariousness (Honneth’s triad of love, being respected as a rights bearer and solidarity shows a different focus). Combining qualitative research on precarious live circumstances with a theoretical perspective on recognition can also be found in a stunning research on couples in atypical working relations (Wimbauer and Motakef 2019). Proceeding from these theories and ‘applying’ them to our empirical material, we seek to call into question a too generalizing and hegemonic picture of how people were affected by pertinent restrictions. Qualitative interviews are able to point us to significant differences in the experience of the restrictions.In terms of an outlook, we suggest that a sensitization for previously excluded kinds of experiences forms a crucial basis for a less normalizing, that is, more inclusive account of interpreting the affectedness and needs of variegated social groups; the pandemic has influenced and altered structures of the recognition of vulnerability and, by the same token, made them more explicit. It thus is an occasion for a critical engagement with the recognizability of needs, deprivation, discrimination, and related phenomena. (shrink)