Aggregating individuals’ consistent attitudes might produce inconsistent collective attitudes. Some groups therefore need the capacity to form attitudes that are irreducible to those of their members. Such groups, group-agent realists argue, are agents in control of their own attitude formation. In this paper, however, I show how group-agent realism overlooks the important fact that groups consist of strategically interacting agents. Only by eliminating group agency from our social explanations can we see how individuals vote strategically to gain control of their (...) groups and produce collective attitudes we cannot make sense of if we treat groups as agents. (shrink)

Introduction: What is evil and how can we understand it? -- The theology of evil -- Theodicies -- The privation theodicy -- The free will theodicy -- The Iraenean theodicy -- The totality theodicy -- History as secular theodicy -- Job's insight-the theodicy of the hereafter -- Anthropology of evil -- Are people good or evil? -- The typologies of evil -- Demonic evil -- Evil for evil's sake -- Evil's aesthetic seduction -- Sadism -- Schadenfreude -- Subjective and objective (...) evil -- Kant and instrumental evil -- The impossibility of a "devilish" will -- The paradox of evil -- Moral rebirth -- The evil is the other-idealistic evil -- "Us" vs. "them" -- Violent individuals -- Arendt and stupid evil -- The evil and the stupid -- Radical and banal evil -- Eichmann, Hoss, and Stangl -- Normal people and extreme evil -- Thinking as opposition -- Evil people -- The problem of evil -- Theory and praxis -- Ethics of conviction and ethics of responsibility -- Politics and violence -- Evil as a concrete problem. (shrink)

This article analyses and presents a survey of ethical conflicts in prehospital emergency care. The results are based on six focus group interviews with 29 registered nurses and paramedics working in prehospital emergency care at three different locations: a small town, a part of a major city and a sparsely populated area. Ethical conflict was found to arise in 10 different nodes of conflict: the patient/carer relationship, the patient’s self-determination, the patient’s best interest, the carer’s professional ideals, the carer’s professional (...) role and self-identity, significant others and bystanders, other care professionals, organizational structure and resource management, societal ideals, and other professionals. It is often argued that prehospital care is unique in comparison with other forms of care. However, in this article we do not find support for the idea that ethical conflicts occurring in prehospital care are unique, even if some may be more common in this context. (shrink)

In 2023, online search engine provider Microsoft integrated a language model that provides direct answers to search queries into its search engine Bing. Shortly afterwards, Google also introduced a similar feature to its search engine with the launch of Google Gemini. This introduction of direct answers to search queries signals an important and significant change in online search. This article explores the implications of this new search paradigm. Drawing on Donna Haraway’s theory of _Situated Knowledges_ and Rainer Mühlhoff’s concept of (...) _Sealed Surfaces_, I introduce the term _Sealed Knowledges_ to draw attention to the increasingly difficult access to the plurality of potential answers to search queries through the output of a singular, authoritative, and plausible text paragraph. I argue that the integration of language models for the provision of direct answers into search engines is based on a de-situated and disembodied understanding of knowledge and affects the subjectivities of its users. At the same time, the _sealing of knowledges_ can lead to an increasing spread of misinformation and may make marginalized knowledge increasingly difficult to find. The paper concludes with an outlook on how to resist the increasing _sealing of knowledges_ in online search. (shrink)

This essay takes a close look at a species of care that is particularly needed by people with progressive dementias but that has not been much discussed in the bioethics literature: the activity of holding the person in her or his identity. It presses the claim that close family members have a special responsibility to hold on to the demented person's identity for her or him, and offers some criteria for doing this morally well or badly. Finally, it considers how (...) even those with dementia can hold others in their identities, and suggests that this kind of holding too can have great moral worth. (shrink)

Recent advances in physics render a reconsideration of the Place of Mathematics in the Interpretation of the Universe particularly timely. On the one hand, we have the introduction of non-euclidian geometry, which has given rise to much controversy informed or otherwise; on the other hand, we find mysterious forms of mathematics, invented to cope with the quantum difficulties, which so far have escaped metaphysical investigation or criticism. It would seem most desirable that these modes of interpreting reality should be examined (...) from the broader philosophical point of view. (shrink)

Die deutschsprachige Rezeption des spanischen Schriftstellers und Philosophen José Ortega y Gasset (1883-1955) ist durch eine auffallende Diskrepanz zwischen der immensen Bedeutung seines Werkes für das Selbst- und Weltverständnis weiter Kreise der Bevölkerung und eine weitgehende Vernachlässigung der Beschäftigung mit eben diesem Werk durch die Fachwissenschaft gekennzeichnet. Dies ist, kurz gesagt, das Ergebnis dieser Studie, die Ortegas unvergleichlichen Rezeptionserfolg in den deutschsprachigen Ländern, insbesondere in der Nachkriegszeit, anhand von Primär- und Sekundärtexten untersucht. Die Autorin gelangt zu der erstaunlichen Schlußfolgerung, daß (...) gerade die Rezeption Ortegas als Beleg für den Verlust der Lebensbedeutsamkeit dieser Wissenschaft, der Philosophie, betrachtet werden kann. (shrink)

This volume explores two questions of interest to a larger intellectual community: (1) what constituted knoweldge in the context of early modern Germany and (2) how knowledge was gathered, assembled, organized, deployed, and interpreted. The perspective is interdisciplinary and the contributions represent several fields of scholarly inquiry.

A common way of analyzing the statistical relation between two tests of memory is to use contingency analyses. A potential problem with such analyses is known as Simpson’s paradox. The paradox is that collapsing two or more contingency tables may have the effect that the relationship expressed in the overall contingency table differs from the relationships expressed in the original tables. The paradox arises when covariates are correlated with each of the tests. It has been claimed that the paradox has (...) implications for the analysis of memory retrieval, and ways of solving the problem have been called for (Hintzman, 1980). In this paper, partial gamma (Davis, 1967) is suggested as one possible solution. This method can be used to compute a weighted average of the results in the original tables. The use of partial gamma is exemplified by applying it to hypothetical instances of Simpson’s paradox. (shrink)

It is often assumed that the concept of alētheia, or ‘truth’, in Gorgias of Leontini belongs to the art of rhetoric. Along these lines, it is usually understood as an aesthetic concept or even a mere ‘adornment’ of speech. In this paper, it is argued, by contrast, that Gorgianic alētheia is a definable criterion of speech figuring in the practice of moral educa­tion. While the ‘truth’ of a logos indeed has to be assessed on aesthetic grounds, the underlying concept of (...) alētheia is predominantly ethical. For Gorgias, speech is ‘true’ when it promotes virtue (aretē) by being expressive of virtue. The principle stated in the opening passage of the Encomium of Helen, that a speaker has ‘to praise what is praiseworthy and to blame what is blameworthy’, explains precisely this understand­ing of alētheia. (shrink)

Technik ist allgegenwärtig. Sie durchdringt nicht nur die Produktion von Gütern und die Wissenschaften, auch unser Alltagsleben ist weitgehend durchwebt mit technischen Anordnungen unterschiedlichster Form und Ausprägung. Dabei ist den einzelnen technischen Artefakten häufig nicht anzusehen, wie stark sie nicht nur unsere Umwelt beeinflussen, sondern sogar unser Erkennen und Verstehen mitprägen. Dieser Zirkel von Verstehen und Gestalten, Gestalten und Verstehen kann als ein hermeneutischer Zirkel der Technik beschrieben werden. Die Beiträge des Sammelbandes setzen sich in diesem Sinne mit Aspekten einer (...) philosophischen Begründung von technischem Handeln auseinander, versuchen verschiedene Deutungen etablierter Wissenschaften zu hinterfragen und geben Aussichten auf mögliche Gestaltungsansätze. Technik wird dabei nicht als dem Menschen gänzlich äußerlich und entgegengesetzt begriffen, sondern als ihm wesentlich inhärent - als Teil verständnisorientierten Handelns und handlungsorientierten Verstehens. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and (...) made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

Can groups really be agents or is group agency just a fiction? Christian List and Philip Pettit argue influentially for group-agent realism by showing how certain groups form and act on attitudes in ways they take to be unexplainable at the level of the individual agents constituting them. Group agency is therefore considered not a fiction or a metaphor but a reality we must account for in explanations of certain social phenomena. In this paper, I challenge this defence of group-agent (...) realism by showing how it is undermined by individual-level analysis of how individuals interact within groups. While group agency can be a useful fiction, real agents are at the individual level, not the collective level. (shrink)

An Invitation to Feminist Ethics is a hospitable approach to the study of feminist moral theory and practice. Designed to be small enough to be used as a supplement to other books, it also provides the theoretical depth necessary for stand-alone use in courses in feminist ethics, feminist philosophy, and women's studies. The "overviews" section introduces important concepts in feminist ethical theory and contrasts that theory with the standard moral theories. The "close-ups" section looks at three topics--bioethics, violence, and the (...) globalized economy--to help students put the theories presented in the Overviews section to practical use. (shrink)

Verili bir durumu anlamayı, onu bir bütün olarak kurgulamak olarak düşünelim. Kurgu basit bir gösterge de olabilir, karmaşık bir yapı da olabilir; belli belirsiz bir iz veya izler toplamı da olabilir. Kurgunun işlevini yerine getirmesini sağlayan gerek ve yeter koşul verili olan durum ile kendi yapısı arasında bir karşılaştırma olanağını sağlamasıdır. Nitekim, en bilindik anlamda bir durumu kurgulamak onu bir başka durumla karşılaştırmaktır. Bu yüzden de karşılaştırma yapmayı anlama yetimiz için ön dayanak olan bir alt-yeti olarak tanımlayabiliriz. Bu alt-yetinin edimsel (...) doğasına ilişkin bazı sorulara yanıt aramak istersek, karşılaştırma dediğimiz edimin doğal koşullarını incelememiz gerekir. Bu bildiride karşılaştırma ediminin doğal koşullarını betimlemeyi amaçlayan bir çerçeve çizmeye ve böylelikle anlama yetimizin ön dayanaklarının edimsel doğasını uygun bir biçimde nasıl yorumlayabileceğimiz sorusuna yanıt vermeye çalışacağım. (shrink)

The main purpose of this book is to introduce a broader audience to emergence by illustrating how discoveries in the physical sciences have informed the ways we think about it. In a nutshell, emergence asserts that non-reductive behavior arises at higher levels of organization and complexity. As physicist Philip Anderson put it, "more is different." Along the text's conversational tour through the terrain of quantum physics, phase transitions, nonlinear and statistical physics, networks and complexity, the author highlights the various philosophical (...) nuances that arise in encounters with emergence. The final part of the book zooms out to reflect on some larger lessons that emergence affords us. One of those larger lessons is the realization that the great diversity of theories and models, and the great variety of independent explanatory frameworks, will always be with us in the sciences and beyond. There is no "Theory of Everything" just around the corner waiting to be discovered. One of the main benefits of this book is that it will make a number of exciting scientific concepts that are not normally covered at this level accessible to a broader audience. The overall presentation, including the use of examples, analogies, metaphors, and biographical interludes, is geared for the educated non-specialist. (shrink)

Despite the overuse of the word in movies, political speeches, and news reports, "evil" is generally seen as either flagrant rhetoric or else an outdated concept: a medieval holdover with no bearing on our complex everyday reality. In _A Philosophy of Evil_, however, acclaimed philosopher Lars Svendsen argues that evil remains a concrete moral problem: that we're all its victims, and all guilty of committing evil acts. "It's normal to be evil," he writes -- the problem is, we have (...) lost the vocabulary to talk about it. Taking up this problem -- how do we speak about evil? -- _A Philosophy of Evil_ treats evil as an ordinary aspect of contemporary life, with implications that are moral, practical, and above all, political. Because, as Svendsen says, "Evil should neither be justified nor explained away -- evil must be fought.". (shrink)

Photographers John Shimon and Julie Lindemann use antique cameras, modern lens technology, artificial light, and contemporary pop culture to create portraits of the people in their native state amidst backyards, living rooms, parking lots, and the landscape of Wisconsin. These recent photographs are juxtaposed with portraits from the Milwaukee Art Museum’s permanent collections, including daguerreotype portraits, ambrotypes, and tintypes of anonymous people taken by nineteenth-century photographers, as well with photographs by such well-known artists as Alfred Stieglitz, Sally Mann, Larry (...) Clark, Walker Evans, Nan Goldin, Eugene von Beuenchenhein, and Francis Ford. The pairings of new and old illustrate the legacy of portraiture and the significance of “posing” before the lens, and each image is enriched by its proximity to another, unmasking sitter, photographer, and viewer. Unmasked & Anonymous: Shimon & Lindemann Consider Portraiture includes more than sixty color and black-and-white photographs plus essays by Shimon, Lindemann, and Milwaukee Art Museum curator Lisa Hostetler. (shrink)

Indlæg ved CM's (Centrum för Marxistiska Samhällsstudier) seminar i filosofi i Lund, april 1978.

A moralised conception of freedom is based on a normative theory. Understanding it therefore requires an analysis of this theory. In this paper, I show how republican freedom as non-domination is moralised, and why analysing this concept therefore involves identifying the basic components of the republican theory of justice. One of these components is the non-moralised pure negative conception of freedom as non-interference. Republicans therefore cannot keep insisting that their freedom concept conflicts with, and is superior to, this more basic (...) concept. I demonstrate how we can use pure negative freedom to formulate the republican theory more precisely. This exercise is more fruitful than the common focus on the alleged conflict between the two freedom concepts. (shrink)

Hannah Arendt and Theodor W. Adorno, two of the most influential political philosophers and theorists of the twentieth century, were contemporaries with similar interests, backgrounds, and a shared experience of exile. Yet until now, no book has brought them together. In this first comparative study of their work, leading scholars discuss divergences, disclose surprising affinities, and find common ground between the two thinkers. This pioneering work recovers the relevance of Arendt and Adorno for contemporary political theory and philosophy and lays (...) the foundation for a critical understanding of political modernity: from universalistic claims for political freedom to the abyss of genocidal politics. (shrink)

Public reason liberals expect individuals to have justificatory reasons for their views of certain political issues. This paper considers how groups can, and whether they should, give collective public reasons for their political decisions. A problem is that aggregating individuals’ consistent judgments on reasons and a decision can produce inconsistent collective judgments. The group will then fail to give a reason for its decision. The paper considers various solutions to this problem and defends a deliberative procedure by showing how it (...) incentivizes information sharing and leads to outcomes most acceptable to the group members. (shrink)

The revival of republicanism was meant to challenge the hegemony of liberalism in contemporary political theory on the grounds that liberals show insufficient concern with institutional protection against political misrule. This article challenges this view by showing how neorepublicanism, particularly on Philip Pettit’s formulation, demands no greater institutional protection than does political liberalism. By identifying neutrality between conceptions of the good as the constraint on institutional requirements that forces neorepublicanism into the liberal framework, the article shows that neutrality is what (...) neorepublicans must jettison to offer a tenable critique of liberalism. Only then can neorepublicans ensure greater protection against misrule by demanding that citizens participate more actively in politics. They can then also criticize liberalism for failing to appreciate the importance of such protection. (shrink)

Institutions promoting republican freedom as non-domination are commonly believed to differ significantly from institutions promoting negative freedom as non-interference. Philip Pettit, the most prominent contemporary defender of this view, also maintains that these republican institutions are neutral between the different conceptions of the good that characterise a modern society. This paper shows why these two views are incompatible. By analysing the institutional requirements Pettit takes as constitutive of republican freedom, I show how they also promote negative freedom by reducing overall (...) interference. To avoid this result, republican institutions must be more restrictive and require that citizens conform to a life of political engagement. But then republican freedom will not be a neutral ideal. Rejecting negative freedom therefore means sacrificing neutrality. (shrink)

This article is a response to Thomas David Riisfeldt’s paper entitled ‘Weakening the ethical distinction between euthanasia, palliative opioid use and palliative sedation’. It is shown that as far as euthanasia and palliative sedation are concerned, Riisfeldt has not established that a common ground, or a similarity, between the two is the relief of suffering. Quite the contrary, this is not characteristic of euthanasia, neither by definition nor from a clinical point of view. Hence, the argument hinges on a conceptually (...) and empirically erroneous premise and is accordingly a non-starter. (shrink)

In the debate on how we ought to define political freedom, some definitions are criticized for implying that no one can ever be free to perform any action. In this paper, I show how the possibility of freedom depends on a definition that finds an appropriate balance between absence of interference and protection against interference. To assess the possibility of different conceptions of freedom, I consider the trade-offs they make between these two dimensions. I find that pure negative freedom is (...) clearly possible. Republican freedom might also be possible, though its protection requirement is too vague for a definitive verdict. Finally, the recently proposed ‘freedom as independence’ is impossible since it is an attempt to avoid the unavoidable trade-off. (shrink)

This study examined the influence of two organizational context variables, codes of conduct and supervisor advice, on personnel decisions in an experimental simulation. Specifically, we studied personnel evaluations and decisions in a situation where codes of conduct conflict with supervisor advice. Past studies showed that supervisors’ advice to prefer ingroup over outgroup candidates leads to discriminatory personnel selection decisions. We extended this line of research by studying how codes of conduct and code enforcement may reduce this form of discrimination. Eighty (...) German managers evaluated and selected candidates from an applicant pool including Germans (ingroup members) and foreigners (outgroup members). Supervisor advice to prefer ingroup members lowered suitability ratings of outgroup members as well as their chances to be selected for an interview. Ethical codes of conduct referring to equal opportunities limited this form of discrimination, but only when codes were enforced by sanctions and integrated into organizational every-day practice. The implications of these findings for research and practice are discussed. (shrink)

According to Niklas Luhmann, causality is both an impossibility and a necessity in education. On the one hand, the task of the teacher is an impossible one, because teaching as communication is a closed system that cannot determine the learning of pupils' psychical system in any causal sense. On the other hand, one cannot practice as a teacher without a belief in causality, i.e., in a causal connection between teaching and learning. In his article “The Child as the Medium of (...) Education,” Luhmann focuses on the enablement of education, despite its impossibility. His answer is that one thing that makes education possible is the emergence of the symbolically generalized medium “the child.” In this article, Lars Qvortrup focuses on Luhmann's understanding of causality. According to Luhmann, causality is not a simple, ontological fact, but the result of the attribution of certain causes to certain effects. The conclusion is that causality as an attribution category — and not causality as an ontological fact — is another thing that makes education possible. Qvortrup also concludes, however, that Luhmann is not alone in criticizing the traditional, mechanical concept of causality. Other contemporary philosophers and sociologists have pointed out that in order to analyze causality in complex social systems, one has to select some causal factors and ignore others. While others do this based on seemingly pure scientific and statistical criteria, Luhmann focuses on attribution as a social construction of causality. (shrink)

The article argues that the doctrine of Gorgias of Leontinoi, as expressed in his "Encomion of Helen", is not a rhetorical technique but a practice of moral education. The medium of this "ethical speech practice" is perceptual forms, its basic mode being the practice of showing or epideictic speech. The crucial standard of this practice is "epideictic rightness", which is identical to Gorgias’ conception of "truth.". According to this conception, speech is true if it exemplifies morally right conduct and moral (...) beauty. True speech in this sense must also be effective speech, since it will promote right behaviour in the future. (shrink)

Although there is a significant amount of research on organizational citizenship behavior and its importance to individual and organizational outcomes, relatively little research has explored the process by which such behavior emerges and is established within an organization. Against this backdrop, we combine the perspectives offered by contextualist inquiry and actor–network theory to propose an integrative framework for investigating how organizational citizenship behavior develops in a large, heterogeneous organization. In order to illustrate the framework, we present a detailed case study (...) of recycling at a large university. Like many other organizations, the university does not have a formal organizational structure to address sustainability concerns and the initiatives are therefore mainly voluntary and emerging in nature, and outcomes are, as a consequence, highly uncertain, and fragile. We argue that contextualist inquiry in combination with actor–network theory provides new and important insights into the emergence and establishment of organizational citizenship behaviors, and that outcomes are contingent upon interactions between the context, process, and content of the behaviors in question and the related networks of human and non-human actors. (shrink)

This paper explores moral sensitivity in a learning perspective, and a framework is developed for the understanding of how moral sensitivity can be developed through reiterative problem solving in the face of diverse ethical problems. Factors that may inhibit the individual's ability to conceive of moral issues are discussed, and perspectives from moral psychology are integrated with theory on problem formulation. It is argued that (1) the individual's moral sensitivity is pivotal for ethical problem solving, because problem formulation is paramount (...) for further reflection and behaviour; (2) ethical behaviour must be understood both (a) in terms of the individual's psychological make‐up that determines psychological response to moral features and (b) in terms of external constraints on the individual's moral sensitivity; and (3) the development of moral sensitivity can be promoted by actively and consciously pursuing disciplined imagination in multi‐perspective formulations of problems. (shrink)

Responsible investment is increasingly prevalent, and both financial and moral concerns can drive such investment. In this article, we investigate how responsible investors of different wealth weigh financial and moral arguments. Prior research on different factors that may codetermine responsible investment behavior yield competing predictions about the influence of personal wealth on investment. We conduct a large-scale natural field experiment on responsible investment, wherein we treat investors with financial, moral, and no arguments. We find that there is a statistically and (...) economically significant difference in responsiveness to financial and moral arguments between investors of different wealth. Specifically, financial arguments are more effective than are moral arguments for high wealth investors but not for low wealth investors, and the effect is particularly high for the wealthiest investors. The findings hold for several different measures of wealth. Our findings contribute to the understanding of the moderating effect of wealth on responsible investment choice. Furthermore, these insights may enable more fine-tuned strategies to stimulate responsible investment among different individual investor segments. (shrink)

Principles of justice, David Estlund argues, cannot be falsified by people’s unwillingness to satisfy them. In his Utopophobia, Estlund rejects the view that justice must bend to human motivation to deliver practical implications for how institutions ought to function. In this paper, I argue that a substantive argument against such bending of justice principles must challenge the reasons for making these principles sensitive to motivational limitations. Estlund, however, provides no such challenge. His dispute with benders of justice is therefore a (...) verbal one over the true meaning of justice, which need not worry those with the intuition that justice should perform a function that requires bending. By focusing on John Rawls’s reasons for bending his justice principles, I point towards a substantive critique of bent justice. (shrink)