This article concerns itself with the relationship between implicit moral cognitions and decisions in the realm of business ethics. Traditionally, business ethics research emphasized the effects of overt or explicit attitudes on ethical decision-making and neglected intuitive or implicit attitudes. Therefore, based on an implicit social cognition approach it is important to know whether implicit moral attitudes may have a substantial impact on managerial ethical decision-making processes. To test this thesis, a study with 50 participants was conducted. In this study (...) the participants were asked to work on a deliberative managerial ethical decision-making task, in which they had to decide on one of two options. Implicit moral attitudes towards the two options were measured using the implicit association test (IAT). A semantic differential scale was used to diagnose explicit moral attitudes towards the two options. Each step taken within the deliberative decision-making process, as well the decision itself, was assessed using a scoring model-based decision analysis and a decision-making questionnaire. The results of this study show that implicit moral attitude has a great influence on the deliberative ethical decision-making process. The derived conclusion is that complex and deliberative decision-making processes in the context of business ethics can be affected by implicit social cognitions such as implicit moral attitudes. (shrink)

This book is a statement of confession to the human beings that we are. We do not have to spiritualise ourselves into pure reason or move to heaven as spiritual beings in order to be truly human. Metaphysics and religion have fulfilled their mission to satisfy our basic need to exceed reality. It is no longer the art of thinking and the art of believing that dominate the artistic self-creation of the human being, but the art of sharing life successfully. (...) In combination with illuminating, but not disenchanting, enlightenment, the author applies a new method in this context: enlightening transfiguration. This makes it possible for him to fully interpret the happiness that we owe to the evolution of life. (shrink)

ObjectivePhysical and mental well-being are threatened by climate change. Since hospitals in high-income countries contribute significantly to climate change through their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, the medical ethics imperative of ‘do no harm’ imposes a responsibility on hospitals to decarbonise. We investigated hospital stakeholders’ perceptions of hospitals’ GHG emissions sources and the sense of responsibility for reducing GHG emissions in a hospital.MethodsWe conducted 29 semistructured qualitative expert interviews at one of Germany’s largest hospitals, Heidelberg University Hospital. Five patients, 12 clinical (...) and 12 administrative employees on different levels were selected using purposive maximum variation sampling. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and analysed using the framework approach.ResultsConcerning GHG emissions, hospital stakeholders perceived energy and waste as most relevant emission sources followed by mobility. Climate change mitigation in general was considered as important. However, in their role as patients or employees, hospital stakeholders felt less responsible for climate change mitigation. They saw providing best possible medical care to be the top priority in hospitals and were often concerned that patients’ health could be jeopardised by climate change mitigation measures.ConclusionPerceptions of most important emission sources did not coincide with those in literature, highlighting the need to inform stakeholders, for instance, about pharmaceuticals as important emission source. A frequently perceived conflict between reducing emissions and providing high-quality medical care could be eased, if reducing emissions would not only be justified as a contribution to mitigation, but also as a contribution to preventing ill health—a basic principle of medical ethics. (shrink)

The paper is a critical comment on D. Hoffman. The Scrambling Theorem: A simple proof of the logical possibility of spectrum inversion. Consciousness and Cognition, 2006, 15, 31–45.

The focus of this book is on conceptual and philosophical issues of perception including the classic notion of unconscious inferences in perception. The book consists of contributions from a group of internationally renowned researchers who spent a year together as distinguised fellows at the German Centre for Advanced Study.

How to read Plutarch in the context of New Testament studies? Almost 50 years after the seminal project on the topic led by Hans Dieter Betz, this volume elevates once again the issue's priority. Bridging discourses is a fitting description both of the religio-philosophical spirit of Plutarch, the Platonist philosopher and priest of Apollo at Delphi, and the task of bringing his writings into fruitful dialogue with the writings of the New Testament, Hellenistic Judaism, and Early Christianity. Taken together, these (...) authors constitute the religious Platonism of the early imperial era. Contributions from the fields of New Testament, classics, philosophy, religious studies, and patristics explore various ways of how to establish these bridges. (shrink)

A Platonist philosopher and priest of Apollo at Delphi, Plutarch (ca. 45-120 CE) covers in his vast oeuvre of miscellaneous writings and biographies of great men virtually every aspect of ancient religion, Greek, Roman, Jewish, Egyptian, Persian. This collection of essays takes the reader on a hike through Plutarch's Religious Landscapes offering as a compass the philosopher's considerations on issues of philosophical theology, cult, ethics, politics, natural sciences, hermeneutics, atheism, and life after death. Plutarch provides a unique vantage point to (...) reconstruct and understand many of the interesting developments that were taking in the philosophical and religious world of the first centuries CE. (shrink)

This article analyzes the construction of female subjectivity in the specific context of audiovisual cyberspaces in Spain dedicated to the struggle against violence against women. Looking at the YouTube channels of two virtual feminist communities that deal with violence against women, the authors analyze how the victim-subject is configured in terms of agency and activism. The authors adopt a multimodal model of studying the sign complexes of the videos as semiotic artifacts that produce meaning. Sign complexes are always engaged because (...) representation is never neutral because what is represented in sign is meant to realize the values and positions of those who make the sign. In this article, the authors understand feminist activism in the fight against violence targeting women as constructing in its discourse not only the activist process, but also the subject of this activism: the victim-subject of gender-based violence. The analysis engages in the discussion about the various ways in which this subject is interpellated by the audiovisual texts in terms of agency. As a result, this study proposes the necessity to devise new ways of articulating this subject as a political and agential one. (shrink)

En este artículo, Hans Rainer Sepp estudia el cuadro de El Greco, Laocoonte, pasando desde la descripción puramente formal del cuadro y el análisis simbólico del mismo hasta el análisis fenomenológico del conjunto pictórico. Análisis que reflejará no sólo la realidad de un mundo cambiante que se mueve entre el todo y la nada sino también la presencia del autor dentro del cuadro, creando un mundo aparente, una Troya toledana, que refleja el drama del artista, hostigado por el compromiso (...) ético y la alternativa de la huída. Por ello, tal vez Laocoonte pueda ser visto como la respuesta de El Greco ante el dilema de la obra de arte. In this paper, Hans Rainer Sepp studies El Greco's Laocoon, from the purely formal description and symbolic analysis to the phenomenological analysis of the pictorial whole. Analysis that highlights not only the reality of a changing world that moves between all and nothing, but the author's presence in the picture, creating a seeming world, a Troy-Toledo, and reflecting the drama of the artist, harassed by the ethical commitment and the alternative of the escape. Perhaps Laocoon can be seen as El Greco's answer to the dilemma of art. (shrink)

ZusammenfassungDie Arbeit diskutiert die These C. G. Hempels, dass allgemeine Gesetze in den Naturwissenschaften und in der Historie die selbe ‘theoretische Funktion’ innehaben. Zu diesem Zweck unterscheidet der Autor zwischen systembildenden und genetische Strukturen bildenden Wissenschaften, denen als Darstellungsformen die Theorienhierarchie und die Narration entsprechen. Diese beiden Grundformen der Organisation unseres Wissens über Tatsachen werden auf einen Unterschied in der Erklärungsweise zurückgeführt, der nicht logischer, sondern pragmatischer Natur ist. Es ist dies der Unterschied zwischen Subsumption und Zurechnung. Während bei der (...) systematischen Organisation des Wissens das zugrundeliegende Theoriengefüge die Bedingungen exakt festlegt, unter denen ein Faktum als erklärt anzusehen ist, fehlt eine solche erkenntnis‐leitende Funktion der Gesetze bei der genetischen Organisation.SummaryThis paper discusses C. G. Hempeľs contention according to which universal laws fulfil the same ‘theoretical function’ in Natural and Historical Science. To this end, the author differentiates between system‐building and genetically structured sciences. Their modes of presentation are respectively hierarchically ordered theory and narrative. These two basic ways of arranging our knowledge of facts are led back to a difference in explanation, of a pragmatic, not logical nature, that is, to the difference between Subsumption and Ascription. Whereas in the systematic organization of knowledge, the basic underlying theory sets the exact conditions, under which a fact can be described as explained, such an epistemological directive function of laws is not to be found in genetic organization. (shrink)

The D-CTC condition, introduced by David Deutsch as a condition to be fulfilled by analogues for processes of quantum systems in the presence of closed timelike curves, is investigated for classical statistical bi-partite systems. It is shown that the D-CTC condition can generically be fulfilled in classical statistical systems, under very general, model-independent conditions. The central property used is the convexity and completeness of the state space that allows it to generalize Deutsch’s original proof for q-bit systems to more general (...) classes of statistically described systems. The results demonstrate that the D-CTC condition, or the conditions under which it can be fulfilled, is not characteristic of, or dependent on, the quantum nature of a bi-partite system. (shrink)

Quantum theory is a powerful framework for probabilistic modeling of cognition. Strong empirical evidence suggests the context- and order-dependent representation of human judgment and decision-making processes, which falls beyond the scope of classical Bayesian probability theories. However, considering behavior as the output of underlying neurobiological processes, a fundamental question remains unanswered: Is cognition a probabilistic process at all?

Das Kernanliegen Eugen Finks gilt dem Weltverhältnis des Menschen. Obgleich für ihn zunächst die Ansätze von Husserl und Heidegger richtungsweisend sind, legt Fink bereits in seiner bei Husserl angefertigten Dissertation den Grund zu seiner eigenständigen philosophischen Position. Sein späteres "kosmologisches" Denken erschließt dem Weltbegriff durch Rückgriff auf die philosophische Tradition neue Dimensionen und konkretisiert ihn zugleich im Rahmen einer Philosophischen Anthropologie, Sozialphilosophie und einer Philosophie des Pädagogischen. Mit dieser Verschränkung von Mensch und Kosmos bietet Finks Werk bedeutsame Ansatzpunkte für die (...) interdisziplinäre geistes- und naturwissenschaftliche Forschung. Der erste Teil des Buches verortet Finks kosmologisches Denken im Kontext der philosophischen Tradition. Im zweiten Teil wird Finks Konzept sowohl bezüglich seines Gesamtentwurfs wie seiner philosophisch-anthropologischen, sozialtheoretischen und religionsphilosophischen Implikationen befragt. Der Band wird durch Finks Studie "Nietzsches Metaphysik des Spiels" eröffnet. Diese aus dem Jahr 1946 stammende und bislang unveröffentlichte Arbeit belegt die wichtige Rolle, die Nietzsche bei der Ausbildung von Finks Denken von Welt gespielt hat. (shrink)

Over the past 15 years, Rainer Forst has developed a fundamental research programme within the tradition of Frankfurt School Critical Theory. The core of this programme is a moral account of the basic right of justification that humans owe to one another as rational beings. This account is put to work by Forst in articulating - both historically and philosophically - the contexts and form of justice and of toleration. The result is a powerful theoretical framework within which to (...) address issues such as transnational justice and multicultural toleration. In this volume, Forst sets out his ideas in an extended essay, which is responded to be influential interlocutors including: Andrea Sangiovanni, Amy Allen, Kevin Olson, Anthony Laden, Eva Erman and Simon Caney. The volume concludes with Forst's response to his interlocutors. (shrink)

Interactive social cognition theory and approaches of developmental psychology widely agree that central aspects of emotional and social experience arise in the unfolding of processes of embodied social interaction. Bi-directional dynamical couplings of bodily displays such as facial expressions, gestures, and vocalizations have repeatedly been described in terms of coordination, synchrony, mimesis, or attunement. In this paper, I propose conceptualizing such dynamics rather as processes of affective resonance. Starting from the immediate phenomenal experience of being immersed in interaction, I develop (...) the philosophical notion of affective resonance to refer to a dynamic entanglement of moving and being-moved in relation. The concept of affective resonance makes visible that the interaction dynamic itself creates an affective experience rather than transmitting internal feeling states between pre-existent individuals. This leads to a philosophical framework in which relationality and ontogeny are primary over separate individuals, and in which the naturalistic distinction of a fundamental physical level versus an emerging level of social processes has to be given up. (shrink)

Introduction: the foundation of justice -- Practical reason and justifying reasons: on the foundation of morality -- Moral autonomy and the autonomy of morality : toward a theory of normativity after Kant -- Ethics and morality -- The justification of justice: Rawls's political liberalism and Habermas's discourse theory in dialogue -- Political liberty: integrating five conceptions of autonomy -- A critical theory of multicultural toleration -- The rule of reasons: three models of deliberative democracy -- Social justice, justification, and power (...) -- The basic right to justification: toward a constructivist conception of human rights -- Constructions of transnational justice: comparing John Rawls's the law of peoples and Otfried Höffe's democracy in an age of globalisation -- Justice, morality, and power in the global context -- Toward a critical theory of transnational justice. (shrink)

In this collection of essays, the first translation into English of the ground-breaking 'Normativität und Macht' (Suhrkamp 2015), Rainer Forst presents a new approach to critical theory. Each essay reflects on the basic principles that guide our normative thinking. Forst's argument goes beyond 'ideal' and 'realist' theories and shows how closely the concepts of normativity and power are interrelated, and how power rests on the capacity to influence, determine, and possibly restrict the space of justifications for others. By combining (...) insights from the disciplines of philosophy, history, and the social sciences, Forst revaluates theories of justice, as well as of power, and provides the tools for a critical theory of relations of justification. Translated from German. (shrink)

The concept of toleration plays a central role in pluralistic societies. It designates a stance which permits conflicts over beliefs and practices to persist while at the same time defusing them, because it is based on reasons for coexistence in conflict - that is, in continuing dissension. A critical examination of the concept makes clear, however, that its content and evaluation are profoundly contested matters and thus that the concept itself stands in conflict. For some, toleration was and is an (...) expression of mutual respect in spite of far-reaching differences, for others, a condescending, potentially repressive attitude and practice. Rainer Forst analyses these conflicts by reconstructing the philosophical and political discourse of toleration since antiquity. He demonstrates the diversity of the justifications and practices of toleration from the Stoics and early Christians to the present day and develops a systematic theory which he tests in discussions of contemporary conflicts over toleration. (shrink)

Data analytics and data-driven approaches in Machine Learning are now among the most hailed computing technologies in many industrial domains. One major application is predictive analytics, which is used to predict sensitive attributes, future behavior, or cost, risk and utility functions associated with target groups or individuals based on large sets of behavioral and usage data. This paper stresses the severe ethical and data protection implications of predictive analytics if it is used to predict sensitive information about single individuals or (...) treat individuals differently based on the data many unrelated individuals provided. To tackle these concerns in an applied ethics, first, the paper introduces the concept of “predictive privacy” to formulate an ethical principle protecting individuals and groups against differential treatment based on Machine Learning and Big Data analytics. Secondly, it analyses the typical data processing cycle of predictive systems to provide a step-by-step discussion of ethical implications, locating occurrences of predictive privacy violations. Thirdly, the paper sheds light on what is qualitatively new in the way predictive analytics challenges ethical principles such as human dignity and the (liberal) notion of individual privacy. These new challenges arise when predictive systems transform statistical inferences, which provide knowledge about the cohort of training data donors, into individual predictions, thereby crossing what I call the “prediction gap”. Finally, the paper summarizes that data protection in the age of predictive analytics is a collective matter as we face situations where an individual’s (or group’s) privacy is violated using dataotherindividuals provide about themselves, possibly even anonymously. (shrink)

Rainer Forst develops a critical theory capable of deciphering the deficits and potentials inherent in contemporary political reality. This calls for a perspective which is immanent to social and political practices and at the same time transcends them. Forst regards society as a whole as an ‘order of justification’ comprising complexes of different norms referring to institutions and corresponding practices of justification. The task of a ‘critique of relations of justification’, therefore, is to analyse such legitimations with regard to (...) their validity and genesis and to explore the social and political asymmetries leading to inequalities in the ‘justification power’ which enables persons or groups to contest given justifications and to create new ones. Starting from the concept of justification as a basic social practice, Forst develops a theory of political and social justice, human rights and democracy, as well as of power and of critique itself. In so doing, he engages in a critique of a number of contemporary approaches in political philosophy and critical theory. Finally, he also addresses the question of the utopian horizon of social criticism. (shrink)

_Contexts of Justice,_ highly acclaimed when it was published in Germany, provides a significant new intervention into the important debate between communitarianism and liberalism. Rainer Forst argues for a theory of "contexts of justice" that leads beyond the narrow confines of this debate as it has been understood until now and posits the possibility of a new conception of social and political justice. This book brings refreshing clarity to a complex topic as it provides a synthesis of traditions and (...) theories that leads to a truly original approach. Forst makes a four-part distinction to decipher the debate between communitarianism and liberalism. These four parts concern the constitution of the self, the neutrality of law, the ethos of democracy, and the opposition between universalism and contextualism. He shows that a comprehensive theory of justice needs to take these different contexts adequately into account. He discusses recent debates about discursive democracy and feminist critiques of liberalism, and addresses such topics as multiculturalism and civil society. (shrink)

The term “toleration”—from the Latin tolerare: to put up with, countenance or suffer—generally refers to the conditional acceptance of or non-interference with beliefs, actions or practices that one considers to be wrong but still “tolerable,” such that they should not be prohibited or constrained. There are many contexts in which we speak of a person or an institution as being tolerant: parents tolerate certain behavior of their children, a friend tolerates the weaknesses of another, a monarch tolerates dissent, a church (...) tolerates homosexuality, a state tolerates a minority religion, a society tolerates deviant behavior. Thus for any analysis of the motives and reasons for toleration, the relevant contexts need to be taken into account. (shrink)