In seiner Geschichtsphilosophie, insbesondere der "Idee zu einer allgemeinen Geschichte in weltbürgerlicher Absicht" erforscht Kant die Geschichte nicht in der bunten Fülle der Geschehnisse. Diese Aufgabe überläßt er der,,eigentlichen bloß empirisch abgefassten Historie". Er betrachtet die Geschichte vielmehr, insoweit sie für den Menschen als praktisches Vernunftwesen von Interesse ist. Dabei wahrt er den Zusammenhang mit der transzendentalen Vernunftkritik und fragt, unter welchen erfahrungsunabhängigen Bedingungen der Gang der Geschichte als vernünftig, als sinnvoll erscheint. So wirft Kant jene Sinnfrage auf, die von (...) den empirischen Geschichtswissenschaften weder gestellt noch beantwortet wird. MIT BEITRÄGEN VON: Karl Ameriks, Reinhard Brandt, Volker Gerhardt, Otfried Höffe, Christoph Horn, Patrick Kain, Pauline Kleingeld, Jane Kneller, Dieter Langewiesche, Jean-Michel Muglioni, Alessandro Pinzani und Wolfgang M. Schröder. (shrink)

In seiner Geschichtsphilosophie, insbesondere der „Idee zu einer allgemeinen Geschichte in weltbürgerlicher Absicht" (1784) erforscht Kant die Geschichte nicht in der bunten Fülle der Geschehnisse. Diese Aufgabe überlässt er der „eigentlichen bloß empirisch abgefassten Historie". Er betrachtet die Geschichte vielmehr, insoweit sie für den Menschen als praktisches Vernunftwesen von Interesse ist. Dabei wahrt er den Zusammenhang mit der transzendentalen Vernunftkritik und fragt, unter welchen erfahrungsunabhängigen Bedingungen der Gang der Geschichte als vernünftig, als sinnvoll erscheint. So wirft Kant jene Sinnfrage auf, (...) die von den empirischen Geschichtswissenschaften weder gestellt noch beantwortet wird. Für die 2. Auflage anlässlich des 300. Jubiläums Immanuel Kants wurden die einzelnen Beiträge komplett überarbeitet und auf den neuesten Forschungsstand gebracht. Mit Beiträgen von: Karl Ameriks, Reinhard Brandt, Volker Gerhardt, Otfried Höffe, Christoph Horn, Patrick Kain, Pauline Kleingeld, Jane Kneller, Dieter Langewiesche, Jean-Michel Muglioni, Alessandro Pinzani und Wolfgang M. Schröder. (shrink)

In der Vorrede zur ersten Auflage der Religionsschrift macht Kant unmissverständlich klar, dass der zur Moral verbundene Mensch der „Idee eines Wesens über ihm" nicht bedürfe. Damit ist aber nicht der Sinn und Zweck der nachfolgenden Schrift bestritten, sondern lediglich klargestellt, dass auch Religion und Kirchenglauben unter dem Prinzipat des Autonomiegedankens stehen. Ausgehend von dieser Feststellung entwickelt Kant eine in vier Stücke gegliederte Schrift, die nicht nur den aufgeklärten Umgang mit positiven Religionen beschreibt, sondern die auch die moralphilosophischen Schriften der (...) 1780er Jahre bisweilen ergänzt, bisweilen modifiziert. So wird beispielsweise die Sphäre moralischer Verbindlichkeiten um eine Gattungspflicht, nämlich eine Pflicht „des menschlichen Geschlechts gegen sich selbst" erweitert und auch das in den Bereich der Anthropologie fallende Theorem des „Hanges zum Bösen" erweist sich als in hohem Maße diskutabel. Dass zu alledem das letzte Wort noch nicht gesprochen ist, zeigt die in den letzten Jahrzehnten wieder anhebende Diskussion, der der vorliegende Band Rechnung trägt, indem er zu etwa gleichen Teilen historisch und systematisch ausgerichtet ist und vieles an interessanten Neubewertungen bereithält. (shrink)

Christliche Ethik in der technischen Welt.--Kybernetik und christliches Ethos.--Christliche Anthropologie und biologische Zukunft des Menschen.--Die Stadt als Ort der Utopie.--Christliche Zukunftshoffnung und rationale Zukunftsplanung.--Verantwortung für die Folgen der Freiheit, theologische Überlegungen zum Thema Umweltschutz.

Die Arbeit behandelt das Verhältnis von Beobachtungs- und theoretischer Sprache anhand der Typenlogik und der Erkenntnistheorie Bertrand Russells. Seine Typentheorie wird auf seine Erkenntnistheorie angewandt. Seine Typentheorie macht deutlich, warum schon aus formalen Gründen eine theoriefreie Beobachtungssprache unmöglich ist.

Ethics in the 21st century is threatened by a split between practical philosophy as a full-blown academic discipline and applied ethics as pragmatic problem-solving inside the political process. The place of the professional philosopher sitting on medical and other 'ethics committees' as an 'ethical expert' is somewhere in between. But where exactly? How is his role defined? Is the expertise he brings to bear on practical decisions of a purely technical or of a substantially moral kind? These issues are discussed (...) both 'from the outside' and 'from the inside'. First, some of the theoretical controversies surrounding 'ethical expertise' are discussed on the background of a rapidly growing literature in the field. These are then related to the realities of commission work as they confront the academic ethicist in practice. (shrink)

Chisholm's two theories of self-consciousness (before and after 1976) are interpreted and evaluated as well motivated, powerful and instructive attempts to avoid circularities while preserving the phenomenon. They are criticised because of correlative shortcomings: The essentialistic theory allows only the formulation and the ascription of self-consciousness in the first person perspective; the second (epistemic) theory is restricted to the ascription of self-consciousness to others. The first theory suffers furthermore from a hidden circularity whereas the second needs an extension that leads (...) into an infinite regress. (shrink)

When in doubt, for the embryo. New arguments on the moral status of human embryos. - In the first part of our essay we distinguish the philosophical from the legal and political level of the embryo debate and describe our indirect justification strategy. It consists in renouncing a determination of the dignity-giving φ-properties and instead starting from premises that are undoubted by all discussion partners. In the second part we reconstruct and criticize the species, continuum, identity and potentiality arguments. The (...) species argument only has a certain plausibility, if at all, as a critical argument. From the continuum argument and identity argument we take over the idea of numerical identity (NI) and link it with the core idea of the potentiality argument (P). So we come to the NIP argument: -/- (NIP) -/- (1) Every living human body that is the bearer of (or has) potential φ-properties has dignity. (2) Every viable human embryo is a living human body that is the bearer of (or has) potential φ properties. Therefore, (3) Every viable human embryo has dignity. -/- Reversibly comatose people and newborns are protected because they have the potential to have actual personal characteristics in the future; our thesis is that embryos that are capable of development also have the same potential in moral terms. The basic idea of numerical identity, with which we support the second premise, is that every human being, from embryonic existence to adulthood, forms a physical unity. In a detailed part, we deal with the crown princess, gametes, parthenogenesis, somatic cell, pronuclear stage, biological heteronome early embryo, multiple, fusion, Siamese twin, hydatidiform mole and finally trophoblast problems. In a third part, the indirect argument is supplemented by a metatheoretical cautionary argument. It states that in situations where there is doubt as to whether a being falls within the scope of a moral norm, but there are sufficiently strong reasons for this subsumption, it must be assumed that this is the case if the contrary assumption and the positive effects it may have are in no acceptable proportion to the moral harm that would result if that subsumption were not made. The main result of our considerations is therefore: When in doubt, for the embryo. (shrink)

The article is devoted to the problem of moral motivation. Author presents a view which, as he argues, is able to bridge the gap between acceptance of a moral rule and an action according to this rule. The main issue here is the future ethics that could possibly become a part of environmental ethics if it takes into consideration future goods and condition of nature. The author discusses rationality of moral norms in future ethics from a perspective of a universalistic (...) paradigm. Drawing from Hare and Sidgwick he maintains that temporal position of someone harmed by a present action cannot be relevant to the moral evaluation of the action in question. He also emphasizes that in case when moral agent is a future and abstract one, there is an important factor involved which could have an influence on our moral identity. It plays a crucial role because our,,natural” motivation to act according to a rule concerns, first of all, moral subjects within a moral community. Birnbacher claims that taking non-moral motivations into account makes the prospects of future-oriented action appear much less gloomy. Therefore, in his project of future ethics, he fuses together levels of moral theory and of emotional basis of our motivation. He illustrates the point by demonstrating that the course of psychological factors has an impact on our motivation for action by the data drawn from empirical social research conducted in Europe and USA. Key words MORAL MOTIVATION, FUTURE. (shrink)

With the current changes driven by the expansion of the World Wide Web, this book uses a different approach from other books on the market: it applies ontologies to electronically available information to improve the quality of knowledge management in large and distributed organizations. Ontologies are formal theories supporting knowledge sharing and reuse. They can be used to explicitly represent semantics of semi-structured information. These enable sophisticated automatic support for acquiring, maintaining and accessing information. Methodology and tools are developed for (...) intelligent access to large volumes of semi-structured and textual information sources in intra- and extra-, and internet-based environments to employ the full power of ontologies in supporting knowledge management from the information client perspective and the information provider. The aim of the book is to support efficient and effective knowledge management and focuses on weakly-structured online information sources. It is aimed primarily at researchers in the area of knowledge management and information retrieval and will also be a useful reference for students in computer science at the postgraduate level and for business managers who are aiming to increase the corporations' information infrastructure. The Semantic Web is a very important initiative affecting the future of the WWW that is currently generating huge interest. The book covers several highly significant contributions to the semantic web research effort, including a new language for defining ontologies, several novel software tools and a coherent methodology for the application of the tools for business advantage. It also provides 3 case studies which give examples of the real benefits to be derived from the adoption of semantic-web based ontologies in "real world" situations. As such, the book is an excellent mixture of theory, tools and applications in an important area of WWW research. * Provides guidelines for introducing knowledge management concepts and tools into enterprises, to help knowledge providers present their knowledge efficiently and effectively. * Introduces an intelligent search tool that supports users in accessing information and a tool environment for maintenance, conversion and acquisition of information sources. * Discusses three large case studies which will help to develop the technology according to the actual needs of large and or virtual organisations and will provide a testbed for evaluating tools and methods. The book is aimed at people with at least a good understanding of existing WWW technology and some level of technical understanding of the underpinning technologies (XML/RDF). It will be of interest to graduate students, academic and industrial researchers in the field, and the many industrial personnel who are tracking WWW technology developments in order to understand the business implications. It could also be used to support undergraduate courses in the area but is not itself an introductory text. (shrink)

Adapting a terminology introduced by Brian Barry, I make a distinction between want-regarding and ideal-regarding principles and apply it to the norms and criteria put forward in environmental ethics. I argue that priority should be given to want-regarding principles over ideal-regarding ones because the former are universalizable while the latter are not, universalizable being understood in the sense of appealing to value premises for which universal assent can be secured. This sense is different both from R. M. Hare’s metaethical concept (...) of universalizability and J. L. Mackie’s “three stages of universalisation.”. (shrink)

Feigl approaches philosophy of mind in the monist perspective of Logical Empiricism but he does not treat the mind-body problem in an eliminative manner. Although he modified his positions and wavered between strict reductionism and explicit non-reductionism, he never abandoned his conviction that the mind-body problem is not a pseudoproblem. Especially in his 'double-knowledge-view' he concedes private mental states that physical theory cannot account for and develops an identity theory that integrates two epistemic features - the way of immediate experience (...) and the indirect way of knowledge-by-description. Feigl's complex treatment of the mind-body problem retains its systematical importance even in the light of later developments in philosophy of mind. (shrink)

In future φ. On a subjectivist thought experiment in the embryo debate. -.

The dignity of human embryos. On the moral relevance of potentiality and numerical identity. -.

This book is open access, which means that you have free and unlimited access. This book analyses and discusses the recent developments for assessing research quality in the humanities and related fields in the social sciences. Research assessments in the humanities are highly controversial and the evaluation of humanities research is delicate. While citation-based research performance indicators are widely used in the natural and life sciences, quantitative measures for research performance meet strong opposition in the humanities. This volume combines the (...) presentation of state-of-the-art projects on research assessments in the humanities by humanities scholars themselves with a description of the evaluation of humanities research in practice presented by research funders. Bibliometric issues concerning humanities research complete the exhaustive analysis of humanities research assessment. The selection of authors is well-balanced between humanities scholars, research funders, and researchers on higher education. Hence, the edited volume succeeds in painting a comprehensive picture of research evaluation in the humanities. This book is valuable to university and science policy makers, university administrators, research evaluators, bibliometricians as well as humanities scholars who seek expert knowledge in research evaluation in the humanities. (shrink)

David Hume is quoted in Binmore’s book Natural Justice more than any other author, past or present, and throughout with a markedly positive attitude. It is argued that this affinity is reflected in many characteristic features of Binmore’s approach to fairness and social justice and especially in the central role motivational issues are made to play in his theory. It is further argued that Binmore shares with Hume not only important strengths but also certain weaknesses, among them a tendency to (...) derive from the limited evidence of past history far-reaching statements on human nature and the conditions thereby imposed on social morality. (shrink)

The moral dilemma of nuclear deterrence arises from two conflicting facts: the fact that in a world of conflicting superpowers with nuclear arsenals preserving peace must have an overriding moral priority; and that a policy of mutual nuclear deterrence, which seems well suited to achieve this aim, faces grave moral difficulties on its own, the main difficulty being the moral indefensibility of the act of retaliation threatened in case of attack. It is argued that a consequentialist approach to the moral (...) assessment of nuclear deterrence is in principle able to provide a solution to this dilemma by reducing the moral dilemma to a non-moral dilemma which can in turn be solved by a comparison of risks. In this connection, a theory of the ‘functional’ assessment of intentions is developed in order to subject even threats involving a conditional intention to retaliate to consequentialist reasoning. (shrink)

The application of multiple regression and path analysis is discussed in regard to the exclusive use of the beta coefficients. Beta is one of the possible ways of controlling for the effects of the remaining predictors, others are part and partial correlation, part and partial covariance. A typology is developed for the difference between total and controlled effect. With this instrument (for controlled effect = beta) it can be shown under which conditions the sum of the total explaining power (r2y,xi) (...) and the sum of the additional explaining power (Part correlation2) do exceed or not Multiple R2. By the criteria of sign rule and of the relative advantages of the decomposition of total effect in controlled effect and rest effect it is argued that beta is still the best way (of those considered) of control. Next some problems of the otherwise recommended LISREL approach are discussed: Estimation, data-fitting versus model test, model-fitting, standardization. Finally some parallels between models for metric and models for non-metric data are specified. (shrink)

Is causal analysis an appropriate method to discover causal laws? Some prerequisites for any successful application of mathematical causal models are worked out and discussed. It can be shown that these prerequisites cannot be fulfilled by present models and there are strong reasons to assume that they cannot be satisfied by any model. Therefore causal analysis will probably be of no importance for the discovery of causal laws in sociology.

Published in honor of Victor L. Selivanov, the 17 articles collected in this volume inform on the latest developments in computability theory and its applications in computable analysis; descriptive set theory and topology; and the theory of omega-languages; as well as non-classical logics, such as temporal logic and paraconsistent logic. This volume will be of interest to mathematicians and logicians, as well as theoretical computer scientists.