Darwinian Evolution and Classical Liberalism brings together a collection of new essays that examine the multifaceted ferment between Darwinian biology and classical liberalism.

Virtue Epistemology has come a long way since Ernest Sosa first mooted its possibility in ‘The Raft and the Pyramid’, a paper about the pitfalls of coherentism and foundationalism. What makes Virtue Epistemology distinctive, as opposed to other forms of reliabilist externalism, is that the epistemic agent becomes the locus for justification rather than the belief. In the midst of a small but growing literature in this focus on the agent, two clear trends are emerging that reflect a difference in (...) interest by the authors rather than any real underlying antagonism between camps. Where faculty reliabilists like Sosa and Greco are concerned about sceptical challenges, virtue responsibilists like Zazebski or Roberts and Wood prefer to write about intellectual flourishing. (shrink)

In The Untamed God (2003), Jay Wesley Richards defends what he calls “theological essentialism,” which affirms God’s essential perfections but also recognizes contingent properties in God. This idea places Richards’s view in the vicinity of Charles Hartshorne’s dipolar theism. However, Richards argues that Hartshorne’s modal theory suffers from the defects that it abandons the principle ab esse ad posse, makes nonsense of our counter-factual discourse, and can only be expressed by C. I. Lewis’s S4, although for certain (...) purposes Hartshorne needs the stronger S5. Richards, however, fails to realize that Hartshorne’s theory involves two concepts of necessity—necessity as what is common to every possible world-state and necessity as it pertains to the unalterability of the past. While questions remain about Hartshorne’s theory, Richards’s arguments against it are unsuccessful. Most importantly, Richards uncritically accepts the concept of possible worlds as a basis for his critique, but Hartshorne’s arguments cast doubt on the coherence of this idea. Possible worlds provide anything but a firm foundation on which to make sense of either theological essentialism or Hartshorne’s panentheistic dipolar theism. (shrink)

Engineering Ethics: Challenges and Opportunities aims to set a new agenda for the engineering profession by developing a key challenge: can the great technical innovation of engineering be matched by a corresponding innovation in the acceptance and expression of ethical responsibility? Central features of this stimulating text include: · An analysis of engineering as a technical and ethical practice providing great opportunities for promoting the wellbeing and agency of individuals and communities. · Elucidation of the ethical opportunities of engineering in (...) three key areas: Engineering for Peace, emphasising practical amelioration of the root causes of conflict rather than military solutions. Engineering for Health, focusing on close collaboration with healthcare professionals for both the promotion and restoration of health. Engineering for Development, providing effective solutions for the reduction of extreme poverty. · Innovative strategies for implementing these ethical opportunities are described: Emphasis on the personal responsibility of every engineer and on the benefits of supporting social structures. Use of language and concepts that are appealing to business managers and political decision makers. · Future prospects for increasing the acceptance and expression of ethical responsibility by engineers are envisaged. · Engineering Ethics: Challenges and Opportunities provides engineers, decision makers and the wider public with new understanding of the potential of engineering for the promotion of human flourishing. (shrink)

This paper was originally presented at the annual meeting of the program board of the Division of Overseas Ministries of the National Council of Churches. It followed a discussion by Jorgen Randers showing the implications of present world trends in growth of population and industrialization, depletion of natural resources, rise in population, and full utilization of agricultural land. Referring to the two hours of his talk and the ensuing discussion, Randers said, “The entire purpose is to convince you that exponential (...) growth cannot go on forever in a world of fixed size.” Randers stressed that overtaxing of the natural environment is caused more by industrialization than by population. Industrial processes use natural resources and emit pollution. Capital‐intensive agriculture in time decreases the productivity of land. Limiting of capital accumulation is as necessary as limiting of population. World civilization must and will move from growth to equilibrium, either by human choice or by the pressure of natural and social forces.Many trade‐offs and choices lie before us in the approaching equilibrium. We can press forward along the historical growth curves, exceed the limits of the world environment, and endure a collapse of population and industrialization back to a level the world can support. Or we can choose a redirection of law, policies, and religions to create a smooth transition to world equilibrium. Even in choosing equilibrium, alternatives arise. The higher the population, the lower will be the achieveable standard of living and quality of life. Trade‐offs will be made consciously or implicitly between advantages in the immediate future compared to advantages in the distant future. An inherent conflict exists between time horizons. Choosing to maximize the present quality of life condemns future generations to suffer for their predecessors' advantage.The reader should, if possible, read first any of those cited in notes1, 2, or 6 listed at the end of this paper before reading the following text, —J A Y W. FORRESTER. (shrink)

This study examined the challenges for supervisors and managers of managing sick leave within a New Zealand university. We used a qualitative research design, interviewing 20 university staff across the academic and service divisions who had managerial roles. We applied Habermas’ distinctions of technical instrumental, practical relational, and emancipatory critical transformative interests, and his twofold distinction of system and lifeworld to our analysis. The primary findings suggest that while the technical instrumental discourses were dominant within the university bureaucracy, managers drew (...) upon practical relational and emancipatory critical transformative discourses to justify the considerable discretion they exercised in managing sick leave. Far from being incidental, these humanistic elements are as much a part of the bureaucracy as the rational elements and are fundamental to the system’s equilibrium. (shrink)

I summarize seven general trends in the institutional analysis of organizations which I view as constructive and provide evidence of progress in the development of this perspective. I emphasize corrections in early theoretical limitations as well as improvements in the use of empirical indicators and an expansion of the types of organizations included and issues addressed by institutional theorists.

Today, many visual artists are giving the cold shoulder to the static, isolated concept of visual art and searching instead for novel, dynamic connections to different image strategies. Because of that, visual art and aesthetics are both forced to reconsider their current positions and their traditional apparatus of concepts. In that process, many questions surface. To mention a few: Could the characteristics of an artistic image and its specific manner of signification be determined in a world which is entirely aesthetisized? (...) What would be the consequences of a variety of image strategies for aesthetic experience? Would it be possible to develop a form of cultural criticism by means of artistic activities in a culture awash in images? In order to answer such questions, aesthetics as a philosophy of art needs to transform its field into a critical philosophy of topical visual culture. As an impetus to such a reinterpretation of the visual working area, the L & B Series organized three symposia evenings under the title “Exploding Aesthetics”, in cooperation with De Appel Center for Contemporary Art, Amsterdam. Besides the presentations and discussions from these symposia, this volume includes various arguments, positions, and statements in both articles and interviews by a variety of visual artists, designers, advertising professionals, theorists and curators. The participants are: Mieke Bal, Annette W. Balkema, Peg Brand, Experimental Jetset, Liam Gillick, Jeanne van Heeswijk, Martin Jay, KesselsKramer, Friedrich Kittler, Maria Lind, Wim Michels, Nicholas Mirzoeff, Planet Art, Joke Robaard, Annemieke Roobeek, Remko Scha, Rob Schröder, Henk Slager, Richard Shusterman, Pauline Terreehorst, Wolfgang Welsch and Marie-Lou Witmer. (shrink)

Engineers have made an enormous contribution to promoting human wellbeing. Their work can also be the cause of immense human suffering. However, theological approaches to engineering ethics are scarce. Good starting points for a theological approach are provided by the ethics of Buber and Levinas, especially when combined with the idea of engineering as a practice in MacIntyre’s sense. A further strengthening of the importance of persons and a strong emphasis on the significance of community can be introduced through consideration (...) of the theology of Zizioulas, Dussel and Yannaras. This can provide the context for the consideration of the work of engineers as a para-eucharistic activity, a creative means of promoting the communion of persons through contribution to material wellbeing. Specific examples are given of how such a theological approach suggests reprioritisations of the role of engineers in promoting peace, of the contribution of engineers to removing infrastructural poverty in developing countries, and of the responsibilities of engineers in developed countries. (shrink)

Engineering makes profound contributions to our health. Many of these contributions benefit whole populations, such as clean water and sewage treatment, buildings, dependable sources of energy, efficient harvesting and storage of food, and pharmaceutical manufacture. Thus, ethical assessment of these and other engineering activities has often emphasized benefits to communities. This is in contrast to medical ethics, which has tended to emphasize the individual patient affected by a doctor’s actions. However, technological innovation is leading to an entanglement of the activities, (...) and hence ethical responsibilities, of healthcare professionals and engineering professionals. The article outlines three categories of innovation: assistive technologies, telehealthcare and quasi-autonomous systems. Approaches to engineering ethics are described and applied to these innovations. Such innovations raise a number of ethical opportunities and challenges, especially as the complexity of the technology increases. In particular, the design and operation of the technologies require engineers to seek closer involvement with the persons benefiting from their work. Future innovation will require engineers to have a good knowledge of human biology and psychology. More particularly, healthcare engineers will need to prioritize each person’s wellbeing, agency, human relationships and ecological self rather than technology, in the same way that doctors prioritize the treatment of persons rather than their diseases. Content Type Journal Article Category Article Pages 204-221 DOI 10.1558/hrge.v17i2.204 Authors W. Richard Bowen, i-NewtonWales, 54 Llwyn y mor, Caswell, Swansea, SA3 4RD, UK Journal Human Reproduction & Genetic Ethics Online ISSN 2043-0469 Print ISSN 1028-7825 Journal Volume Volume 17 Journal Issue Volume 17, Number 2 / 2011. (shrink)

Engineers make an enormous contribution to promoting the wellbeing of individuals and the communities in which they live, but engineering may also give rise to adverse consequences. Engineering therefore requires ethical awareness, and professional engineers often use ethical codes to guide their actions. The content of the Royal Academy of Engineering’s authoritative Statement of Ethical Principles is discussed and compared to the paradigmatic Rule of St Benedict. This leads to suggestions for the development of an enriched code for engineering that (...) considers not only what actions are desirable but also how and why they should be carried out. Issues arising in the formulation of an enriched code acceptable also to those of no explicit faith or of other faiths are considered. It is suggested that the development of enriched professional codes is a general and strategically important challenge for theological ethics. (shrink)

We argue that many of the benefits theorists have attributed to the ability to forget should instead be attributed to what psychologists call the “fading affect bias,” namely the tendency for the negative emotions associated with past events to fade more substantially than the positive emotions associated with those events. Our principal contention is that the disposition to display the fading affect bias is normatively good. Those who possess it tend to lead better lives and more effectively improve their societies. (...) Secondarily, we note that if Julia Driver’s moral theory is correct, then the disposition to display the fading affect bias is a moral virtue. (shrink)

Exercise may influence components of executive functioning, specifically cognitive control and action monitoring. We aimed to determine whether high level exercise improves the efficacy of cognitive control in response to differing levels of conflict. Fitter individuals were expected to demonstrate enhanced action monitoring and optimal levels of cognitive control in response to changing task demands. Participants were divided into the highly active or low-active group based on self-reported activity using the International Physical Activity Questionnaire. A modified flanker task was then (...) performed, in which the level of conflict was modulated by distance of distractors from the target and congruency of arrows. Electroencephalography was collected during 800 trials; trials were 80% congruent, 20% incongruent, 50% close, and 50% far. The error-related negativity and error positivity were extracted from the difference wave of correct and incorrect response locked epochs, the N2 from the difference wave of congruent and incongruent stimulus locked epochs and the P3 from stimulus locked epochs. The HA group showed a larger Pe amplitude compared to the low-active group. Close trials elicited a larger N2 amplitude than far trials in the HA group, but not the low-active group, the HA group also made fewer errors on far trials than on close trials. Finally, the P3 was smaller in the lowest conflict condition in the HA, but not the low-active group. These findings suggest that habitual, high levels of exercise may influence the endogenous processing involved in pre-response conflict detection and the post-error response. (shrink)

We use screams to explore ideas presented in the target article. Evolving first in animals as a response to predation, screams reveal more complex social use in nonhuman primates and, in humans, uniquely, are associated with a much greater variety of emotional contexts including fear, anger, surprise, and happiness. This expansion, and the potential for manipulation, promotes listener social vigilance.

The purpose of this paper is to present the theoretical and philosophical assumptions of the Nursing Manifesto, written by three activist scholars whose objective was to promote emancipatory nursing research, practice, and education within the dialogue and praxis of social justice. Inspired by discussions with a number of nurse philosophers at the 2008 Knowledge Conference in Boston, two of the original Manifesto authors and two colleagues discussed the need to explicate emancipatory knowing as it emerged from the Manifesto. Our analysis (...) yielded an epistemological framework based on liberation principles to advance praxis in the discipline of nursing. This paper adds to what is already known on this topic, as there is not an explicit contribution to the literature of this specific Manifesto, its significance, and utility for the discipline. While each of us have written on emancipatory knowing and social justice in a variety of works, it is in this article that we identify, as a unit of knowledge production and as a direction towards praxis, a set of critical values that arose from the emancipatory conscience-ness and intention seen in the framework of the Nursing Manifesto. (shrink)

In this book Marx is revealed as a powerful contributor to the debates that now dominate philosophy and political theory. Using the techniques of analytic philosophy to unite Marx's general statements with his practice as historian and activist, Richard W. Miller derives important arguments about the rational basis of morality, the nature of power, and the logic of testing and explanation. The book also makes Marx's theory of change useful for current social science, by replacing economic determinist readings with a (...) new interpretation in which systems of power relations are the basis of change. Part One discusses Marx's criticisms of the moral point of view as a basis for social choice. The outlook that emerges is humane but antimoral. Part Two argues that Marx's concept of the ruling class is a means, of measuring political power that is ignored yet urgently needed by present-day social science. Part Three bases Marx's theory of history on the dynamics of power, challenging both the standard, economic determinist readings of the theory and standard conceptions of science. (shrink)