E. O. Wilson argues that we must use scientifically based reason to solve the values dilemma created by the loss of a transcendent foundation for values. Peter Singer allows that sociobiology can help us understand the evolutionary origin of ethics, but denies the claim that sociobiology or any science can furnish us with ultimate ethical principles. We argue that Singer's critique of Wilson's attempt to bridge the gap between fact and value using empirical reason is unconvincing and that Singer's own (...) ethical principle of disinterestedness requires major support from empirical reason and is not sustainable by pure reason alone. (shrink)

Michael Ruse has proposed in his recent book Taking Darwin Seriously and elsewhere a new Darwinian ethics distinct from traditional evolutionary ethics, one that avoids the latter's inadequate accounts of the nature of morality and its failed attempts to provide a naturalistic justification of morality. Ruse argues for a sociobiologically based account of moral sentiments, and an evolutionary based casual explanation of their function, rejecting the possibility of ultimate ethical justification. We find that Ruse's proposal distorts, overextends and weakens both (...) Darwinism and naturalism. So we propose an alternative Darwinian metaethics that both remedies the problems in Ruse's proposal and shows how a Darwinian naturalistic account of the moral good in terms of human fitness avoids the naturalistic fallacy and can provide genuine, even if limited, justifications for substantive ethical claims. Thus, we propose to really take Darwin seriously. (shrink)

In a recent paper in this journal (Rottschaefer and Martinsen 1990) we have proposed a view of Darwinian evolutionary metaethics that we believe improves upon Michael Ruse's (e.g., Ruse 1986) proposals by claiming that there are evolutionary based objective moral values and that a Darwinian naturalistic account of the moral good in terms of human fitness can be given that avoids the naturalistic fallacy in both its definitional and derivational forms while providing genuine, even if limited, justifications for substantive (...) ethical claims. Jonathan Barrett (this issue) has objected to our proposal contending that we cannot hold for the reality of supervenient moral properties without either falling foul of the naturalistic fallacy or suffering the consequences of postulating inexplicable moral properties. In reply, we show that Barrett's explicit arguments that we commit either the definitional or derivational form of the naturalistic fallacy fail and that his naturalistic intuitions that supervenience explanations of moral properties by nonmoral properties force us into what we call the explanatory form of the naturalistic fallacy also fail. Positively, his objections help us to clarify the nature of the naturalistic fallacy within an evolutionary based naturalistic ethics and to point out the proper role of both supervenience explanations and moral explanations in such an ethics. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to investigate the concept of care in contemporary medical practice and medical ethics. Although care has been hailed throughout the centuries as a crucial ideal in medical practice and as an honourable virtue to be observed in codes of medical ethics, I argue that contemporary medicine and medical ethics suffer from the lack of a theoretically sustainable concept of care and then discuss possible reasons that may help to explain this absence. I draw on (...) the empirical studies of Carol Gilligan on care and connectedness as ontologically situated realities in human life. Based on a philosophical elaboration of her findings on the ethics of care emphasizing relationality, I try to show how the notion of ‘relational ontology’ originating from this stream of thought may be of help in developing a medical ethics that acknowledges care as a perspective to be observed in all interactions between physicians and patients. (shrink)

Der Sammelband nimmt seinen Ausgang in einer der prominentesten und lebendigsten Debatten inner-halb der neueren Politischen Theorie, die seit uber einer Dekade intensiv auch in der deutschsprachigen Politischen Theorie gefuhrt wird. Im Zentrum der Diskussion steht die Unterscheidung von Politik und Politischem, in deren Licht die Beitrage des Bandes Fragen der radikalen Demokratie, dem Widerstandigen des Politischen und den Rezeptionslinien dieser wichtigen Debatte nachspuren. Mit Beitragen von Werner Friedrichs, Mareike Gebhardt, Anastasoiya Kasko, Oliver Marchart, Martin Nonhoff, Hagen Scholzel, Karsten Schubert, (...) Manon Westphal und Markus Wolf. (shrink)

What are the philosophical views of professional philosophers, and how do these views change over time? The 2020 PhilPapers Survey surveyed around 2000 philosophers on 100 philosophical questions. The results provide a snapshot of the state of some central debates in philosophy, reveal correlations and demographic effects involving philosophers' views, and reveal some changes in philosophers' views over the last decade.

In this paper I introduce a theoretical framework on care developed by the Norwegian nurse and philosopher Kari Martinsen, and I argue that this approach has relevance not only within nursing, but also within clinical medicine. I try to substantiate this claim by analysing some of the key concepts in this approach, and I illustrate the potential clinical relevance of this approach by applying it in relation to two care scenarios. Finally, I discuss some of the concerns that have (...) been raised in relation to the aim of highlighting care in medicine. (shrink)

A leading political theorist’s groundbreaking defense of ideal conceptions of justice in political philosophy Throughout the history of political philosophy and politics, there has been continual debate about the roles of idealism versus realism. For contemporary political philosophy, this debate manifests in notions of ideal theory versus nonideal theory. Nonideal thinkers shift their focus from theorizing about full social justice, asking instead which feasible institutional and political changes would make a society more just. Ideal thinkers, on the other hand, question (...) whether full justice is a standard that any society is likely ever to satisfy. And, if social justice is unrealistic, are attempts to understand it without value or importance, and merely utopian? Utopophobia argues against thinking that justice must be realistic, or that understanding justice is only valuable if it can be realized. David Estlund does not offer a particular theory of justice, nor does he assert that justice is indeed unrealizable—only that it could be, and this possibility upsets common ways of proceeding in political thought. Estlund engages critically with important strands in traditional and contemporary political philosophy that assume a sound theory of justice has the overriding, defining task of contributing practical guidance toward greater social justice. Along the way, he counters several tempting perspectives, including the view that inquiry in political philosophy could have significant value only as a guide to practical political action, and that understanding true justice would necessarily have practical value, at least as an ideal arrangement to be approximated. Demonstrating that unrealistic standards of justice can be both sound and valuable to understand, Utopophobia stands as a trenchant defense of ideal theory in political philosophy. (shrink)

David Hume's Enquiry concerning Human Understanding is the definitive statement of the greatest philosopher in the English language. His arguments in support of reasoning from experience, and against the "sophistry and illusion"of religiously inspired philosophical fantasies, caused controversy in the eighteenth century and are strikingly relevant today, when faith and science continue to clash. The Enquiry considers the origin and processes of human thought, reaching the stark conclusion that we can have no ultimate understanding of the physical world, or (...) indeed our own minds. In either sphere we must depend on instinctive learning from experience, recognizing our animal nature and the limits of reason. Hume's calm and open-minded skepticism thus aims to provide a new basis for science, liberating us from the "superstition" of false metaphysics and religion. His Enquiry remains one of the best introductions to the study of philosophy, and his edition places it in its historical and philosophical context. (shrink)

The zetetic turn in epistemology raises three questions about epistemic and zetetic norms. First, there is the relationship question: what is the relationship between epistemic and zetetic norms? Are some epistemic norms zetetic norms, or are epistemic and zetetic norms distinct? Second, there is the tension question: are traditional epistemic norms in tension with plausible zetetic norms? Third, there is the reaction question: how should theorists react to a tension between epistemic and zetetic norms? Drawing on an analogy to practical (...) philosophy, I develop a focal point view to resolve these motivating questions. On the focal point view, traditional epistemic norms and zetetic norms answer different types of normative questions. There is nevertheless a familiar type of evaluative tension between traditional epistemic norms and zetetic norms, but this tension is an unavoidable feature of the normative landscape and not a sign that traditional epistemic norms need revision. But if traditional epistemic norms are not zetetic norms, then in what sense is zetetic epistemology a project for epistemologists? I conclude by articulating a sense in which some nontraditional epistemic norms are zetetic norms, and in which zetetic epistemology is an important part of the study of theoretical rationality. (shrink)

Das Buch entwirft mithilfe von Befragungen des Politischen eine radikale und kritische politische Theorie. Hierfür ist zum einen wichtig, die derzeit vorherrschende politische Theorie und Philosophie, die auf umfassende normative Begründungsprogramme setzt, einer eingehenden Kritik zu unterziehen. Das geschieht in dieser Studie, indem die Konturen einer gesellschaftstheoretischen, kritischen und skeptischen politischen Theorie in Auseinandersetzung mit u.a. Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, Foucault, Derrida, Lefort, Butler und Rancière ausgeleuchtet werden. Zum anderen wird das Potential dieser anderen kritischen politischen Theorie an drei grundlegenden Gegenstandsbereichen (...) erprobt: Subjektkonstitution, Gesellschaftsordnung und radikale Demokratie. (shrink)

By means of an example, shows the possibility of beliefs that are separately rational whilst together inconsistent.

One of the enduring concerns of moral philosophy is deciding who or what is deserving of ethical consideration. Much recent attention has been devoted to the "animal question" -- consideration of the moral status of nonhuman animals. In this book, David Gunkel takes up the "machine question": whether and to what extent intelligent and autonomous machines of our own making can be considered to have legitimate moral responsibilities and any legitimate claim to moral consideration. The machine question poses a (...) fundamental challenge to moral thinking, questioning the traditional philosophical conceptualization of technology as a tool or instrument to be used by human agents. Gunkel begins by addressing the question of machine moral agency: whether a machine might be considered a legitimate moral agent that could be held responsible for decisions and actions. He then approaches the machine question from the other side, considering whether a machine might be a moral patient due legitimate moral consideration. Finally, Gunkel considers some recent innovations in moral philosophy and critical theory that complicate the machine question, deconstructing the binary agent--patient opposition itself. Technological advances may prompt us to wonder if the science fiction of computers and robots whose actions affect their human companions could become science fact. Gunkel's argument promises to influence future considerations of ethics, ourselves, and the other entities who inhabit this world. (shrink)

How should one react when one has a belief, but knows that other people—who have roughly the same evidence as one has, and seem roughly as likely to react to it correctly—disagree? This paper argues that the disagreement of other competent inquirers often requires one to be much less confident in one’s opinions than one would otherwise be.

I attempt to get as clear as possible on the chain of reasoning by which irreversible macrodynamics is derivable from time-reversible microphysics, and in particular to clarify just what kinds of assumptions about the initial state of the universe, and about the nature of the microdynamics, are needed in these derivations. I conclude that while a “Past Hypothesis” about the early Universe does seem necessary to carry out such derivations, that Hypothesis is not correctly understood as a constraint on the (...) early Universe’s entropy. (shrink)

This narrative case study, created from several qualitative sources, portrays a young woman’s life experiences and an eight yearlong therapy process with Norwegian Psychomotor Physiotherapy. It is analyzed retrospectively from an analytical angle, where NPMP theory is expanded with Løgstrup’s phenomenology of sensation and Ricoeur’s narrative philosophy. Understanding Rita’s narrative through this window displayed some foundational phenomena in a singular way, illuminating embodied experiences in inter-subjective relationships in movement, sensation and time entwined. It illustrates how traumatic life experiences may cause (...) pain, suffering and ruptured narratives with fragmented physical and sensuous reactions, chaos and loss of temporal coherence with consequences for a person’s sense of identity. Rita’s narrative also illuminates how intersubjective interaction has healing potentials when there is time and space for trust to emerge and to support new bodily-based experiences. Embodied sensuous experiences in present time may help clarify past and present and support chronology in narration and the sense of identity. With this exemplary case study, we argue that Løgstrup’s and Ricoeur’s thinking may add valuable perspectives to understanding suffering and healing processes in the field of embodied therapies like NPMP. (shrink)

We start by presenting three different views that jointly imply that every person has many conscious beings in their immediate vicinity, and that the number greatly varies from person to person. We then present and assess an argument to the conclusion that how confident someone should be in these views should sensitively depend on how massive they happen to be. According to the argument, sometimes irreducibly de se observations can be powerful evidence for or against believing in metaphysical theories.

Worries about mental causation are prominent in contemporary discussions of the mind and human agency. Originally, the problem of mental causation was that of understanding how a mental substance (thought to be immaterial) could interact with a material substance, a body. Most philosophers nowadays repudiate immaterial minds, but the problem of mental causation has not gone away. Instead, focus has shifted to mental properties. How could mental properties be causally relevant to bodily behavior? How could something mental qua mental cause (...) what it does? After looking at the traditional Problem of Interaction, we survey various versions of the property-based problem and look at proposed solutions to them. (shrink)

The recent debate about justice and responsibility increasingly tries to accommodate a new type of agentive situation in which local short-term actions have global long-term consequences due to the action’s embedding in complex interactional networks. Currently the debate is shifting focus from the spatial to the temporal dimension of such wide-scope results of individual actions. This shift from “global ethics” to “intergenerational ethics” and, in particular, “climate ethics” requires some new analytical concepts, however. A definition of wide-scope responsibility aimed at (...) articulating our moral concerns about emergent effects in complex systems, such as climate change, is needed. Working from Iris Marion Young’s “social connection model of responsibility,” a notion of shared ecological responsibility with global and intergenerational scope can be developed. This account is not affected by the so-called non-identity objection to intergenerational ethics. From an action-theoretic rather than normative perspective, the account is “ethically parametrized” in the sense that it can be combined with different conceptions of structural and intergenerational justice. The account can be used to support a concrete climate policy proposal: the “Greenhouse Development Rights Framework.”. (shrink)

It is advisable to treat some sorts of discourse about fiction with the aid of an intensional operator "in such-And-Such fiction...." the operator may appear either explicitly or tacitly. It may be analyzed in terms of similarity of worlds, As follows: "in the fiction f, A" means that a is true in those of the worlds where f is told as known fact rather than fiction that differ least from our world, Or from the belief worlds of the community in (...) which the fiction originated. (shrink)

1.1 Manifolds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 1.2 Tangent Vectors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (...) . . . . . . . . . . . 7 1.3 Vector Fields, Integral Curves, and Flows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 1.4 Tensors and Tensor Fields on Manifolds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 1.5 The Action of Smooth Maps on Tensor Fields . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 1.6 Lie Derivatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 1.7 Derivative Operators and Geodesics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 1.8 Curvature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 1.9 Metrics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 1.10 Hypersurfaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 1.11 Volume Elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96.. (shrink)

Unprecedented advances in medicine, genetic engineering, and demographic forecasting raise new questions that strain the categories and assumptions of traditional ethical theories. Heyd's approach resolves many paradoxes in intergenerational justice, while offering a major test case for the profound problems of the limits of ethics and the nature of value. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and (...) impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1992. (shrink)

Background: Coercion can cause harm to both the patient and the patient’s family. Few studies have examined how the coercive treatment of a close relative might affect young next-of-kin. Research questions: We aimed to investigate the views and experiences of health professionals being responsible for supporting young next-of-kin to patients in mental health care in relation to the needs of these young next-of-kin in coercive situations and to identify ethical challenges. Research design: We conducted a qualitative study based on semistructured, (...) focus group interviews and an individual interview. Participants and research context: We held three focus group interviews with six to seven children-responsible staff in each group and one individual interview with a family therapist. The participants were recruited from three hospital trusts in the eastern part of Norway. Ethical considerations: The study was approved by the National Data Protection Official for Research and based on informed consent and confidentiality. Findings: Coercion was not a theme among the participants in relation to their work with young next-of-kin, and there was much uncertainty related to whether these young people need special support to deal with the coercive treatment of their close relative. Despite the uncertainty, the study indicated a need for more information and emotional support among the youth. Discussion: Few studies have addressed the potential impact of coercive treatment of a close family member on young next-of-kin. The findings were consistent with existing research but highlighted disagreement and uncertainty among the children-responsible staff about to what extent the young next-of-kin should visit and whether they should enter the ward unit or not. We identified ethical challenges for the children-responsible staff related to the principle of not inflicting harm. Conclusion: From the perspective of children-responsible staff, it appears that the coercive treatment of a close family member entails a need for extra support of young relatives both in relation to information and the facilitation of visits, but more systematic knowledge about these issues is needed. (shrink)

_A Conversation with Cardiologist and Professor Dr. Jens Flensted Lassen._ The essay is a conversation with cardiologist Jens Flensted Lassen about the cultural history of the heart, the connections between the humanities and the hard sciences.

In his historical novel from 1835, Prince Otto of Denmark and his Time, the poet Bernhard Severin Ingemann (1789-1862) established the unknown, yet historical character, Prince Otto of Denmark (1310-1346) as the hero of the novel. This choice has puzzled critics ever since, due to the fact that Prince Otto seems less a potential king than his brother Valdemar IV (1320-1372) who actually became a king of Denmark. Georg Brandes (1842-1927) claimed that Otto mirrored Ingemann’s persona as weak and feminine, (...) a “monk” not suited for kingship. In his ridicule of Prince Otto and Ingemann, Brandes reveals his ideas about gender, masculinity and femininity, but as this article seeks to show, such ideas are tied to time and place. Read from the distance of 2019, Ingemann’s feminine medieval hero might seem more modern and progressive than Brandes would have him. In this sense, the article is a piece of “queer medievalism”. (shrink)

Gegenstand dieser politikwissenschaftlichen Arbeit ist weder die >Textur des Gewissens von Politikern, noch das sozialöffentliche Gewissen, also die Untersuchung von Wohlfahrts-sytemen. Es geht vielmehr um Konzeptionen des moralisch-individuellen Gewissens und der darin konturierten Beziehung zum politischen System. Zentrales Thema ist mithin die Frage nach dem Verhältnis von individueller Freiheit und politischer Ordnung. Dabei wird das semantische Feld im Kontext der Termini Gewissen, Moral und Ethik neu formuliert. Mittels einer Analyse der Gewissensdiskurse in der Frühmoderne sowie in der Spätmoderne läßt sich (...) die These entfalten, daß die Erkenntnis der neuartigen normativen Prob-lemstrukturen im technischen Zeitalter eine politologische Aufklärung erfordern, welche die zu-nehmend erkennbar werdenden Grenzen des Wissens in die Theoriebildung einbezieht. Die Poli-tik- und Sozialwissenschaften befinden sich gegenwärtig in einer Schwellenphase, in der die herkömmlichen normativen Erklärungsmuster, die in der Tradition des ethischen Humanismus verwurzelt sind, zu erodieren beginnen - doch werden die weitreichenden Konsequenzen des gegenwärtig sich vollziehenden sozio-technischen Umbruchs für die politische Ethik allenfalls halbherzig gezogen. Anstelle des populären Rufs nach einer Ethiksteuerung, die via wissenschaft-licher Begründungskonstruktionen und Regelwerken die politische Emanzipation der Individuen verbindlich anleiten soll, wird in diesem Buch für einen Perspektivenwechsel durch die Ver-schiebung der gewissensrelevanten Leitfragen votiert. Dabei erweist sich - kontraintuitiv -, daß dem Subjekt. (shrink)

Our aim in this entry is to articulate the state of the art in the moral psychology of personal identity. We begin by discussing the major philosophical theories of personal identity, including their shortcomings. We then turn to recent psychological work on personal identity and the self, investigations that often illuminate our person-related normative concerns. We conclude by discussing the implications of this psychological work for some contemporary philosophical theories and suggesting fruitful areas for future work on personal identity.

This study elaborates on narrative resources emerging in the treatment of longlasting musculoskeletal and psychosomatic disorders in Norwegian psychomotor physiotherapy. Patients’ experiences produced in focus group interviews were analyzed from a narrative perspective, combining common themes across groups with in depth analysis of selected particular stories. NPMP theory expanded by Løgstrup’s and Ricoeur’s philosophy, and Mattingly’s and Frank’s narrative approach provided the theoretical perspective. Patients had discovered meaning imbued in muscular tension. Control shifted from inhibiting discipline and cognitive strategies, towards (...) more contingence with gravity and sensation, and increased freedom to be what and who they were. Trust, time, open speech, and being respectfully listened to were described as therapeutic pre-conditions. The body was experienced as the source of their voice as their own. As tension patterns transformed, novel experience in sensation appeared to feed narrative imagination, reshaping past plots, embodied identity and future prospects. NPMP was disclosed as a treatment integrating detection, battle and repair as narrative subplots, but the core narrative was the journey of transformation. Novel embodied narrative resources nourished the quest for a life and identity in tune with the body as one’s own. (shrink)

Since the 1990s the so-called transparency of experience has played a crucial role in core debates in philosophy of mind. However, recent developments in the literature have made transparency itself quite opaque. The very idea of transparent experience has become quite fuzzy, due to the articulation of many different notions of transparency and transparency theses. Absent a unified logical space where these notions and theses can be mapped and confronted, we are left with an overall impression of conceptual chaos. This (...) is a problem, given the constant and ubiquitous references to transparency in the literature and its prominent position in the contemporary philosophy of mind. My goal in this paper is to restore clarity through proper analysis of the mutual relations between the different transparency theses. This allows me to uncover a unitary multidimensional logical space where existing (as well as possible) views can be properly singled out and located. (shrink)

1. The Shmagency Challenge to Constitutivism In metaethics – and indeed, meta-normativity – constitutivism is a family of views that hope to ground normativity in norms, or standards, or motives, or aims that are constitutive of action and agency. And mostly because of the influential work of Christine Korsgaard and David Velleman, constitutivism seems to be gaining grounds in the current literature. The promises of constitutivism are significant. Perhaps chief among them are the hope to provide with some kind (...) of answer to the skeptic about morality or perhaps practical reason, and the hope to secure for practical reason a kind of objectivity that is consistent with its practical, motivationally engaged nature. The former philosophical motivation for constitutivism – most clearly present in much of Korsgaard’s relevant work[1] – relies on the fact that constitutive norms seem to be less mysterious than not-clearly-constitutive norms. There arguably is nothing mysterious about, say, the norms of certain reasonably-well-defined activities, like building a house, or playing chess. And challenges by the relevant skeptic – the one asking "Why should I make sure the house I’m building can shelter people from the weather?" or "Why should I not castle when my king is checked?" – seem very rare, barely intelligible, and anyway remarkably easy to cope with. We should explain to the misguided skeptic that if he doesn’t even try to build something that can protect people from the weather, he’s not in the business of building a house at all; that if she doesn’t even try to play by the rules of chess, she’s not in the business of playing chess at all; and so on. It would be nice, the constitutivist hope seems to go, if we had something equally powerful by way of a response to the skeptic asking "Why be moral?". The other main motivation for constitutivism – most clearly present in David Velleman’s relevant work[2] – starts from a commitment to some rather strong kind of existence-internalism about reasons: An agent has a reason to?, according to such views ), only if she can come to?, or at least to be motivated to?, by sound deliberation starting from her actual motivational set. (shrink)

Der Band stellt in Einzelportraits aktuelle Positionen zu einer kritischen Theorie der Demokratie sowie verschiedene Ansatze der Staatskritik von Autorinnen und Autoren der Politischen Philosophie aus Frankreich vor. Einige der hier vorgestellten Ansatze sind dem so genannten Poststrukturalismus zuzuordnen. Daruber hinaus kommt eine Reihe anderer demokratie- und staatstheoretischer Ansatze zur Sprache, insbesondere solcher Autorinnen und Autoren, die im deutschen Sprachraum (noch) nicht stark berucksichtigt werden. In den Beitragen zu den franzosischen Theoretikerinnen und Theoretikern werden deren zentrale demokratie- und staatskritische Thesen (...) dargestellt und eingehend diskutiert. Neben einem Uberblick uber die vielfaltigen gegenwartigen Debatten im franzosischsprachigen Diskurs uber Demokratietheorie und Staatskritik bietet der Band wichtige Impulse fur eine vertiefende Auseinandersetzung mit kritischer Demokratietheorie und deren Perspektiven - jenseits von Sprach- und Landesgrenzen auch auf der transnationalen und globalen Ebene. (shrink)

Kollektive und individuelle Selbstbestimmung lassen sich in pluralistischen Gesellschaften kaum verwirklichen, ohne die Besonderheiten sozialer Gruppen zu berücksichtigen. Die Autoren fragen, wie die politische Philosophie diese Herausforderungen normativ reflektieren kann. Es wird deutlich, dass die größte Aufgabe heute darin besteht, Besonderheits- und Gleichheitsforderungen miteinander zu vermitteln.

We become ill in ways our parents and grandparents did not, with diseases unheard of and treatments undreamed of generations ago. This text tells the story of the modern experience of illness, linking ideas of illness, health, and postmodernism.