Climate policy decisions are decisions under uncertainty and are, therefore, based on a range of future climate scenarios, describing possible consequences of alternative policies. Accordingly, the methodology for setting up such a scenario range becomes pivotal in climate policy advice. The preferred methodology of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change will be characterised as ,,modal verificationism"; it suffers from severe shortcomings which disqualify it for scientific policy advice. Modal falsificationism, as a more sound alternative, would radically alter the way the (...) climate scenario range is set up. Climate science's inability to find robust upper bounds for future temperature rise in line with modal falsificationism does not disprove that methodology, rather, this very fact prescribes even more drastic efforts to curb CO2 emissions than currently proposed. (shrink)

This article seeks to explore the theoretical contributions of Axel Honneth, particularly in his works, The Struggle for Recognition and Reification, aiming at diving deep into the debate on the contemporary ideological expressions and their incidence in the process of subjective constitution in teenage years. This particular interest springs from the need to interweave the concepts of reification, forgetfulness and recognition within a fruitful theoretical field in order to interpret a project work called Hip-Hop: cultures and identities, developed with teenagers (...) in a public school in the city of São Paulo, Brazil. From our point of view, the concepts of reification and forgetfulness are fundamental to identify how the conservative ideological expressions are present in the imaginary of adolescents in the contemporary world. Although rereading the concepts of reification and forgetfulness, as proposed by the author, is regarded as essential for understanding the ideological expressions that are based on and guided by consumption. However, even though we acknowledge Honneth's efforts toward moving forward with the concept of reification, it is crucial to emphasize the mediation concept Lukács explored in his work, History and Class Consciousness, so as to elucidate how the forgetfulness of the primary recognition relations is processed. (shrink)

The term body integrity identity disorder (BIID) describes the extremely rare phenomenon of persons who desire the amputation of one or more healthy limbs or who desire a paralysis. Some of these persons mutilate themselves; others ask surgeons for an amputation or for the transection of their spinal cord. Psychologists and physicians explain this phenomenon in quite different ways; but a successful psychotherapeutic or pharmaceutical therapy is not known. Lobbies of persons suffering from BIID explain the desire for amputation in (...) analogy to the desire of transsexuals for surgical sex reassignment. Medical ethicists discuss the controversy about elective amputations of healthy limbs: on the one hand the principle of autonomy is used to deduce the right for body modifications; on the other hand the autonomy of BIID patients is doubted. Neurological results suggest that BIID is a brain disorder producing a disruption of the body image, for which parallels for stroke patients are known. If BIID were a neuropsychological disturbance, which includes missing insight into the illness and a specific lack of autonomy, then amputations would be contraindicated and must be evaluated as bodily injuries of mentally disordered patients. Instead of only curing the symptom, a causal therapy should be developed to integrate the alien limb into the body image. (shrink)

Obtaining informed consent from patients is a moral and legal duty and, thus, a key legitimation for medical treatment. The pivotal prerequisite for valid informed consent is decision-making capacity of the patient. Related to the question of whether and when consent should be morally and legally valid, there has been a long-lasting philosophical debate about freedom of will and the connection of freedom and responsibility. The scholarly discussion on decision-making capacity and its clinical evaluation does not sufficiently take into account (...) this fundamental debate. It is contended that the notion of free will must be reflected when evaluating decision-making capacity. Namely, it should be included as a part of the appreciation-criterion for decision-making capacity. The argumentation is mainly drawn on the compatibilism of Harry Frankfurt. A solution is proposed which at the same time takes the notion of free will seriously and enriches the traditional understanding of decision-making capacity, strengthening its justificatory force while remaining clinically applicable. (shrink)

The global Covid-19 crisis raises at least three moral questions, which my contribution answers as follows: (1) Which patient should get treatment according to triage criteria? The patient whose treatment has the best prospect of success. (2) How should we resolve the conflict between public health measures and economic needs? Public health should have priority, but reaches its limits where the individual right to stay afloat through one’s own work is violated. (3) How should we resolve the conflict between public (...) health measures and civil liberties? Public health should have priority, but reaches its limits where the restriction of freedom violates the integrity of individual health and personal freedom. The answers and the arguments behind these are developed through the discussion of a wide range of current public health policies, concrete measures, and competing approaches to moral questions in the Covid-19 pandemic. (shrink)

The critical aspects of deep brain stimulation are usually the focus of the ethical debate about the implantation of electrodes into the brain of patients with Parkinson’s disease. Above all, potential postoperative side effects on personality caused by DBS mark the debate. However, rehabilitation of agility and mobility by DBS can be posited against critical aspects. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to emphasize the hitherto neglected positive aspects of that technology. A detailed study of the rehabilitation of controlled (...) movements will thus be the object of this article. The possibility to move again in a controlled way will be discussed as freedom of movement. The concept freedom of movement is being linked to the observation of feelings of euphoria and joy that can occur after surgery for patients with PD stimulated in the subthalamic nucleus. This is done based on phenomenological analysis and qualitative interviews, in which the relation between freedom of movement and feelings of joy becomes clear. The aim here is to show that these feelings of exaltation express an essential feeling of freedom – a bodily felt freedom – which is grounded in movement and can be regained by STN-DBS. (shrink)

Der Artikel spürt den subtilen Veränderungen nach, die bei Patienten, die mit tiefer Hirnstimulation behandelt werden, möglicherweise beobachtet werden können. Dabei sollen im Rückgriff auf Konzeptionen zur narrativen Identität mittels einer möglichst genauen Beschreibung und Analyse der Selbstwahrnehmung der Patienten sowie der Wahrnehmung ihres Umfelds die Änderungen im praktischen Selbstverhältnis untersucht werden, u. a. am Beispiel technomorpher Metaphern, die von den Patienten in ihren Selbstbeschreibungen verwendet werden. Ziel ist es, die Neuartigkeit und das Spezifische der Neurotechnologien – über die bisherigen (...) Untersuchungen hinaus – hinsichtlich des Umgangs mit sich selbst herauszuarbeiten und greifbar zu machen. Abschließend werden auf Basis der Analyse der Patienten-Narrationen die entsprechenden normativen Implikationen für eine ethische Bewertung des Einsatzes von Neurotechnologien benannt. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that Adorno's metacritique of freedom in Negative Dialectics and related texts remains fruitful today. I begin with some background on Adorno's conception of ‘metacritique’ and on Kant's conception of freedom, as I understand it. Next, I discuss Adorno's analysis of the experiential content of Kantian freedom, according to which Kant has reified the particular social experience of the early modern bourgeoisie in his conception of unconditioned freedom. Adorno argues against this conception of freedom and suggests (...) that freedom is always conditioned by our embodiment and by our social and historical situation. Finally, I turn to Adorno's criticism of Kant's discussion of freedom and determinism in the Critique of Pure Reason and argue that while his philosophical argument against Kant fails, his metacritical argument remains suggestive. Scepticism about freedom arises when the standpoint of theoretical reason encroaches upon the standpoint of practical reason and assimilates persons to things. (shrink)

In this essay, I address the question of whether the indisputable progress being made by the neurosciences poses a genuine threat to the language game of responsible agency. I begin by situating free will as an ineliminable component of our practices of attributing responsibility and holding one another accountable, illustrating this via a discussion of legal discourse regarding the attribution of responsibility for criminal acts. I then turn to the practical limits on agents' scientific self-objectivation, limits that turn out to (...) be mirrored philosophically in the conceptual problems that plague reductionist strategies. Having shown that free will is rooted in unavoidable performative presuppositions belonging to agents' participant perspective, I then take up the difficult issue of how to reconcile an epistemic dualism of participant and observer perspectives with the assumption of ontological monism. I critically review a range of proposed physicalist solutions, including non-reductionist and (standard) compatibilist approaches. An underlying problem with scientistic, physicalist approaches is the methodological fiction of an exclusive ?view from nowhere? which relies on the problematic move of disengaging the objectivating perspective of the scientific observer from the investigators' participant perspective of those engaged in scientific practice. Since there is no way of getting around the requisite complementarity of both the observer's encounter with the objective world and the participant's involvement in shared lifeworld practices, the remaining option is to take an epistemological turn. But even the recognition that science is ultimately constituted from within the lifeworld still leaves us with the question as to how the human mind can understand itself as the product of natural evolution. I conclude with some tentative suggestions as to how this difficult question might be addressed. (shrink)

Essay criticizing Sigmund Freud's critique of religion and its philosophical implications.

Socratic Philosophizing is an open process of thinking that follows a net of methods. Martens develops his Five Finger Model in accordance with Socrates and the history of philosophy. Philosophizing within the community of inquiry is characterized by attitudes of curiosity, openness, and the willingness to make oneself understandable as well as to understand the other person in return. There are five core philosophical methods that assist in making such philosophizing successful: Phenomenology, Hermeneutics, Analysis, Dialectics and Speculation. These five methods (...) are understood as reflective operations which are learned in an elementary way and practiced step-by-step: to be able to describe something exactly, to understand oneself and others, to clarify in a conceptual and argumentative way how something is understood), to ask and to disagree,, to fantasize how something could be understood. Marten’s Five Finger Model builds on these methods in order to help children build broader and distinct questions through philosophizing. To illustrate this we will present an interactive game that can be used to introduce the teaching themes of Who am I?, Partnership, Tolerance, and Foreign Cultures. The game is called “Distance and Closeness.” The game was evaluated afterward using the framework of the five finger method. (shrink)