Artificial intelligence is a general-purpose technology (GPT), term given to technologies that shape an entire era and reorient innovations by reconfiguring the economy’s logic and functioning and bringing in new business models. AI offers unprecedented opportunities and risks. The benefits of AI are extraordinary, as are its potential harms. Potential damage does not have the same degree of problematization, since the intensity and extent of the damage varies according to the domain and the object of application. To address the scale (...) of this challenge, regulation is necessary but not sufficient. Standards, unwritten codes of compliance and arbitration procedures, supervision and auditability, AI governance, international agreements, compliance with current local and global standards and laws. All of this needs to be integrated. Society seems to have no alternative to facing the challenges of at least mitigating the damage already identified and trying to predict future damage in advance. The purpose of this article is to encourage reflection regarding the main initiatives that are available to society to protect its citizens and organizations from the potential harm caused by AI models, vis-à-vis the technology’s own limits to act in ethical and legal compliance. (shrink)

Notwithstanding universities’ many laudable aims, incidents of serious bullying, academic harassment and sexual harassment in academic settings are reported with increasing regularity globally. However, the human rights violations involved in bullying and academic harassment have not received attention by the literature. In this article, we pierce the veil of silence surrounding university environments and provide a systematic account of the breaches of international and European human rights law involved in academic bullying and harassment. By adopting a socio-legal lens, we shed (...) light onto such practices and tactics, the breaches of specific human rights and norms and the reluctance of states and regulators to intervene in what is perceived to be universities’ ‘sovereign’ sphere of jurisdiction in order to prevent human rights’ violations and to protect the victims of human rights abuse. We call for a multi-faceted and multi-agency approach to tackle academic bullying and harassment, and make a number of institutional and policy recommendations to ensure universities’ compliance with human rights standards and the effective protection of academics under attack. (shrink)

The United States is one of the most charitable nations, yet comprises some of the most materialistic citizens in the world. Interestingly, little is known about how the consumer trait of materialism, as well as the opposing moral trait of gratitude, influences charitable giving. We address this gap in the literature by theorizing and empirically testing that the effects of these consumer traits on charitable behavior can be explained by diverse motivations. We discuss the theoretical implications, along with implications for (...) charitable organizations, and offer suggestions for future research. (shrink)

Professional musicians are expected to perform at a very high level of proficiency. Many times, this high standard is associated with perfectionism, which has been shown to prompt both adaptive and maladaptive motivational dynamics and outcomes among music students. The question about how perfectionism interplays with motivational dynamics in music students is still unanswered and research within this line is scarce, especially in Latin America. In the light of Self-Determination Theory, this cross-sectional study investigated the relationship between the perceptions of (...) motivational context, basic psychological needs, perfectionism, and flourishing in University music students from Lima, Peru. We performed a path analysis testing a model in which motivational teaching styles predicted both, perfectionism and flourishing via need satisfaction and frustration. The model's fit indices were ideal [χ2 = 7.48, p = 0.300, CFI = 0.998, TLI = 0.992, RMSEA = 0.021, SRMR =0.040]. In this model, perceived autonomy supportive style predicted need satisfaction positively and need frustration negatively; perceived controlling teaching style did not predict need satisfaction nor frustration. In turn, need satisfaction positively predicted adaptive perfectionism and flourishing; whereas, need frustration predicted maladaptive perfectionism. These results shed light on the relevance of perfectionism in the psychology of higher music education students. Lastly, we highlight the importance of autonomy support in fostering adaptive high standards and flourishing in music learning. (shrink)

The framing of the debate concerning sovereignty in terms of the dualism of retention or rejection conceals the floating character of sovereignty and constrains the capacity of the state to mutate, adapt and respond adequately to the diverse and complex processes which range in, through and above it. The paper develops the idea of floating sovereignty by putting forward four main propositions: (i) sovereignty's historical entanglement with statehood makes it unsuitable for non‐state political organisations; (ii) although the state has been (...) the necessary condition for sovereignty, the latter is no longer necessary for the evolution of the state; (iii) the traditional ideological function performed by sovereignty, namely the legitimation of state power, could be performed by other organizing principles which prioritize governmental efficiency over territorial extent and democratic criteria over nationalist ones; (iv) this means that the state will no longer be in a position to command the loyalty of its citizens but it would have to purchase it through its capacity to meet social needs, to fulfil its basic functions and through the normative qualities of its institutions and policies. Three institutional designs in core areas of ‘high politics’, that is, the fields of determination of nationality, immigration policy and foreign and security policy show how floating sovereignty could be implemented. (shrink)

Welcome to the new series of "Thought and Practice: A Journal of the Philosophical Association of Kenya". Africa’s socio-political crisis is multi-faceted, and therefore requires a many-pronged approach. It is for this reason that Thought and Practice seeks to serve as a forum for scholars with broad interests in the humanities and social sciences, where they can exchange ideas on various facets of Africa’s current realities and challenges.

This paper employs the critical and analytical techniques of philosophical reflection to present a moral justification for the use of non-violent civil disobedience by Kenyan citizens in pursuit of their aspirations. It sets out with a brief review of political disobedience in Kenya from the advent of the British invasion and domination of the country in the late nineteenth century to the present. Next, it examines the nature of non-violent civil disobedience, outlining the views of four of its most influential (...) advocates, namely, Étienne de La Boétie, Henry David Thoreau, Mohandas Karmachand Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. It then offers a moral justification for non-violent civil disobedience by presenting nine arguments in its favour, with special reference to the Kenyan context. Thereafter, it answers six objections to non-violent civil disobedience. The paper concludes that it is high time that Kenyans gave serious consideration to a commitment to non-violent civil disobedience. (shrink)

Africa’s current socio-economic predicament is often solely attributed to political and economic mismanagement. However, such an analysis is far from comprehensive, as it fails to account for the historical, sociological and psychological causes of the current unsatisfactory social conditions in the continent. Consequently, using the critical and prescriptive techniques of philosophic reflection, this paper examines four apparent mental impediments to desirable social transformation in contemporaryAfrica, namely, conservatism, feeble social consciousness, blind acceptance of the white-black dichotomy, and a fixation with foreign (...) paradigms of managing public affairs. The paper calls for an interdisciplinary approach to the verifying, mitigating and/or eliminating of these impediments. (shrink)

This paper argues that despite pressures to conform to the research methodology of the social sciences, African philosophers must diligently work for the preservation of the distinct character of philosophy as a discipline. To do this, they will have to move away from the debate on the existence and nature of African philosophy, and focus their efforts on the quest for a criterion by which to distinguish philosophical works from non-philosophical ones, regardless of where the works hail from. They will (...) also have to be busy engaging in other aspects of philosophical reflection, so that their discipline may grow in an all-rounded manner, and so that the research methodology of philosophy may be manifest to scholars from other disciplines. Only then will philosophy make its unique contribution to interdisciplinary research in Africa and beyond. (shrink)

Despite the end of the Cold War and the ascendancy of liberal democracy celebrated by Francis Fukuyama as “the end of history”, a growing number of scholars and political activists point to its inherent shortcomings. However, they have tended to dismiss it on the basis of one or two of its salient weaknesses. While this is a justifiable way to proceed, it denies the searching reader an opportunity to see the broad basis for the growing rejection of liberal democracy among (...) African political theorists. Consequently, in this article, I argue that from an African perspective, the almost hegemonic status of liberal democracy can be challenged on at least five grounds, namely, logical inconsistency, impracticability due to the largely communalistic outlook of many africans, inconsistency between affirmation and action, violation of the right to ethnic identity, and the moral imperative to assert the right to cultural emancipation. -/- I conclude by calling upon African and Africanist political theorists to utilise indigenous African political thought, coupled with emancipatory aspects of political thought from other parts of the world, to design practicable models of democracy for contemporary African states. I further conclude that in order to promote genuine inter-cultural dialogue on democratisation, people from Western cultures ought to acknowledge the equality of all cultures, and to recognise that systems of governance are part and parcel of those cultures. (shrink)

Discourses and the ideas, perceptions and templates upon which they are based exert a powerful influence on law-making, push policy-making in a precise direction and determine operational action and outcomes. British counterterrorist law and policy post 9/11 is heavily mediated through a conceptual filter that evokes a siege mode of democracy, which deliberately displaces the traditional rights-based model, and a security narrative based on a double asymmetry. By blending a discursive theoretical approach with an institutionalist perspective, the discussion examines the (...) siege mode of democracy and its implications and the double asymmetry underpinning the Government's framing of the threat and of the means to counter it. Both features of the Government's security discourse are critical in explaining not only British counter-terrorist legislation and policy evolution in the 21st century and the controversial operation ‘Kratos’ adopted by ACPO in 2002, but also their official depiction as necessary, and singular, responses to some structured necessity and the associated logic of ‘no alternative’. (shrink)

A life colonization is produced due to systemic demands that as a sign of the present-day life invades it with its logical functioning throwing moral and ethical values out either in private life or in public opinion. It is also important to point out a great increase of many pathologies in private..

The proposal of the work centers on pointing out some of the relationships between the concepts that refer to the processes of socialization and subjectivation in its articulation with the understanding. For this end, a brief reference to them is made from a multidisciplinary and transversal approac..

v. 1. Nae Ionescu -- v. 2. Mircea Eliade -- v. 3. Octav Onicescu -- v. 4, pt. 1-2. Noica şi Securitatea.

The relationship between food and religion is a lived activity formed by the dynamics of both tradition and adaption. Religious commitments to food are influenced by various factors, ranging from personal spirituality and experiences to social patterns of belonging, ethical, polit­ical and doctrinal convictions. _Challah_, _gefilte_ _fish_, _blintzes_ – these are just a few of the traditional Finnish Jewish meals that are still prepared by members of the community. The originally Eastern European dishes are one of the last living links (...) that connect assimilated Finnish Jews with their Orthodox Jewish ancestors mainly from Russia, Poland, Belarus, and Lithuania. The current paper aims to present the conceptions and reflections relating to boundaries of identity connected with the multi-ethnic culinary traditions of Jews living in Finland as well as their ways of coping with the requirements of _kashrut_. The article is based on ethnographic data from interviews as well as personal encounters, informal conversations and home visits. (shrink)

In this writing it is presented Rawl’s proposal about the possibility of civil disobedience in the face of a democratic authority legitimately established. Rawlsian civil disobedience shows its antiauthoritarian claims depending on the maintenance of a fair order, and social society is the way of..

This book proposes a new institutional constructivist model, for social scientific and legal enquiries, based on the interrelations within the social and political world and the application of change in EU laws and politics. Much of the research conducted in social sciences and law examines the diverse activities of individuals and collectivities and the role of institutions in the social and political world. Although there exist many vantage points from which one can gain entry into understanding how agents in the (...) world act, interact, shape and bear the world, socio-legal scientific epistemology has found monism and dualism to be convincing models. This book argues that current models do not capture the complexity of our micro-worlds, macro-worlds and meso-worlds. Nor can they account for the forms and patterns of socio-legal change. Mind, time and change are brought together in an attempt to contribute to socio-legal epistemology and to enhance its toolkit. (shrink)

Discussions on the impact and future directions of technology often proceed from an empirical point of view that seems to presume that the ebb and flow of technological developments is beyond the control of humankind, so that all that humanity can do is adjust to it. However, such an approach easily neglects several crucial normative considerations that could enhance the standing of individual human beings and whole communities as rational users of technology rather than its slaves. Besides, more often than (...) not, technological products are designed in ways that neglect the needs of persons with disabilities, thereby perpetuating their exclusion from society. Consequently, this article proposes four normative considerations to guide the initiatives of African societies in their deployment of the technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, namely, inclusiveness to meet the needs of all human beings, affordability to bridge the digital divide, respect for cultural identity to guard against cultural imperialism, and an ethical orientation as the overarching guide to building a truly human society. (shrink)

Populistic political discourse often portrays ethnic minorities as threats to the majority society. However, the deeper characteristics of perceived threats have not been sufficiently empirically investigated. The goal of this study is to identify the similarities and differences in intergroup threats perceived by Slovak majority from Roma, Muslims, and ethnic Hungarian minorities. The participants included 1244 adults who were instructed to write the first five associations that came to mind when thinking about one of the minorities. Our findings indicate that (...) power threat was dominant from the Hungarian minority and safety threat from the Roma and Muslim minorities. Moreover, the safety threat from the Roma minority related mainly to theft and violence, while from Muslims it was terrorism. Mapping and addressing specific threats associated with different minorities can help explain misperceptions and reduce prejudice against them. (shrink)

En el texto se llevan a cabo una serie de reflexiones en relación a la formación ética en las universidades para desde ahí edificar mejores ciudadanos. La relevancia de los estudios teóricos en la temática ética es crucial para apuntalar la comprensión de la ética y la ciudadanía en la vida práctica: sólo así podremos cambiar algo de este mundo. Además, la complejidad de nuestra realidad requiere de un pensar crítico para poder desbrozar tales complejidades, ayudándonos a comprender mejor nuestra (...) realidad y circunstancia. Sólo así podremos convertirnos en seres responsables de lo que nos toca hacer en nuestro mundo. La exigencia de un pensar ético crítico no puede dejarse de lado dado que será el único herramental que nos posibilite proyectarnos al futuro en la construcción de una mejor humanidad. (shrink)

En este texto se pretende mostrar la importante tarea que llevó a cabo Vico en torno a la diversidad de culturas, y la posibilidad de comprensión entre ellas, por medio del método hermenéutico que parte de la fantasía. Una apuesta por el pluralismo cultural y el entendimiento de los pueblos desde la categoría de lo (sentido) "común".